CONVENTION-AL POLITENESS.
John Bull. "DELIGHTED, MY DEAR MADAM! IT PLEASES YOU, AND—(Aside)—IT DOESN'T HURT ME!!"
SPEEDING THE PARTING GUEST.
Host (who has trod on the Lady's Skirt). "Oh! Forgive me! You see it's my Natural Instinct to Detain you!"
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
"My Autobiography and Reminiscences," by W. P. Frith, R.A. The Modern Hogarth, painter of "Ramsgate Sands," "The Derby Day," and "The Road to Ruin," can use his pen as well as his pencil. "Where got thou that goose-quill?" as Macbeth would have said, had Shakspeare wished him to do so. How is it that Mr. Frith has never employed his goose-quill before? Sometimes it is soft-nibbed, and occasionally hard-nibbed, but it is almost always well pointed; and, though he writes with an overflowing pen—for he frequently has to check his impulsive waywardness—yet there is scarcely a blot on the paper throughout the two volumes.