Various

“ Marks. Very likely. But we don't have many ladies now, and a good job too—they are a bore.
Loung. Well, you are a chap! Why, how can there be any fun without your sisters, and your cousins, and your maiden aunts?
Marks. We don't want fun. But there, good-bye!
Loung. But I say, I have come all this way to look you up.
Marks. (unbending) . Very kind of you, but, my dear fellow, you have chosen rather an unfortunate time.
Loung. Why, at Wimbledon you had nothing to do!
Marks. Very likely. But then Bisley isn't Wimbledon. ”

“ Tuesday.—FERGUSSON says life at Foreign Office would be endurable only for LABBY. The Sage has got the Triple Alliance on the brain; spends his mornings in drafting questions there anent. That FERGUSSON wouldn't mind so much, only it involves his spending his afternoons in drafting answers that shall look coherent, and yet say nothing. Answers often so admirably suited to their purpose, that doubts arise as to whether a firmer hand than FERGUSSON's has not traced them on paper. ”

“ We try to bear up; make the best of things; but in our secret hearts confess that this century has seen but one Lord ELCHO, and now he's Earl of WEMYSS.
Was in fine old style to-night. DORCHESTER brought on question of Volunteers. They are going to Wimbledon on Saturday to be reviewed by that veteran the German EMPEROR. DORCHESTER, in modest, convincing speech, pointed out how unfair it was that, in addition to, in many cases, losing a day's pay, in all cases incurring a day's hard work, that Volunteers should be required to pay expenses of their trip to Wimbledon. ”

“ Monday, July 6.—Don't know what the House of Lords would do without WEMYSS. How the House of Commons gets along without ELCHO is another story. Of course we are not absolutely ELCHO-less. Amurath has succeeded to Amurath, and there is still an ELCHO in the Commons. Perhaps in time he may reach the towering height of his illustrious father. He does very well as it is ”

“ CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN sends thrill of apprehension through listening Senate by inquiring whether the House of Commons is licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors?
No one every thought of that before. As far an anyone knows, place isn't licensed; consequently, in very birthplace of legislation, the law has for years been systematically defied. ”

“ He is getting on in life; the affectations he so laboriously cultivated no longer amuse. The witlings of his Clubs remark openly upon his ridiculous desire to pose as an earth-shaking personage, and when he goes home he has to listen to a series of bitter home-truths from the acrid ELVIRA. Would it not, I ask, have been better for Sir GERVASE BLENKINSOP, K.C.M.G., to have continued his ancient and aimless existence, than to have had a fallacious greatness dangled before his eyes to the end of his disappointed, but aspiring life? ”

“ The consciousness that I am here, not as myself, but in disguise as somebody else, name unknown, rather oppresses me; only at first, however, as very soon I recognise a number of familiar faces and figures all in strange array. A stockbroker or two, a few journalists, several ordinary people belonging to various callings and professions, some others noble, some gentle, some simple, but most of us eyeing each other furtively, and wondering where the deuce the other fellow got his costume from, and what right he has to wear it. ”

“ Nothing to do with the Bar that LOCKWOOD, ASQUITH, and REID adorn; merely a counter, at which they sell what JEMMY LOWTHER alludes to, with a bewitching air of distant acquaintance, as "alcoholic liquors." MORTON, whose great ambition in life is to make people thoroughly comfortable, wants to close the Bar. ”

“ I am generally satisfied with my appearance in the glass as a portrait of a gentleman in repose, but I feel that any display of emotion, even of irrepressible loyalty, would probably be disastrous to some portion of my attire. ”

“ Yes, but it stands to reason that it can't be as popular as Wimbledon.
Marks. My dear fellow, figures are the best test of that. In all the history of the Association we have never had more entries than this year.
Loung. That may be, but you don't have half the fun you had nearer town.
Marks. (laughing) . Don't want to! Business, my dear fellow, not pleasure! And now, old man, I really must be off! Ta, ta! See you later. ”

“ Moreover, the gravity of his aspect and the solemn inflection of his voice, would have compelled Members to listen to the end of the recitation with a sort of dim consciousness that they were really being informed as to the details of an understanding come to between Her majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the Governments of Germany and Italy. ”

“ There is the usual crush, and the guests outside the drawing-room, who can neither hear nor see what is going on, console themselves by conversing in distinctly audible tones. Jammed in a doorway, between the persons who are trying to get in, and the people who would be only too glad to get out, is an Unsophisticated Guest who doesn't know a soul, and is consequently reduced to listening to the Recitation. This is what he hears:—
"I am only a Cowboy." ”

“ Man in gorgeous uniform makes his way to the vacant Stall next to me. I am a bit flustered until he salutes me heartily with—"How d'ye do? How are you?" Why, it's—well, no matter who it is. I have met him everywhere for years; we are the best of friends. ”

“ FREE.
["It is human nature, after all. When conscientiously I cannot praise actors or actresses, or authors, they turn their backs upon me. But when conscientiously I am able to draw attention to their great merits, they simply overflow."—Mr. CLEMENT SCOTT, in The Illustrated London News.] ”

“ No wonder we've had so many dancing parties at the Cape, when all the inhabitants are Capers. I make this a present to my dear old DRUMMY; he can bring it out in his new Persian Joe Miller. Cheeky little street-boys give you Capers' sauce. They can lead you a pretty dance if you chivy them.
AMUSEMENTS OF THE BOERS.
To-day came across a Peep-Boer-Show. Seen it all before. Also a kind of Punch-and-Judy performance going on, translated into South-African dialect. There was not a paying public to witness it ”

“ BLACKSTONE, of BLACKSTONE & SONS, head of the great Coal Merchant Firm; that the man in blue and silver, supposed to be a Hungarian attaché, is the junior partner in BUNNUMS & Co., the Big Cake Purveyor; and that the warlike person, with a jingling sabre, is not a Prussian officer, but is Deputy JONES, in the gorgeous uniform of the Old Buckshire Yeomanry ”

“ All rise; the orchestra plays the "National Anthem," in German, suppose, out of compliment to our Imperial visitors; and afterwards in English (translated, and, I fancy, "transposed") , in honour of H.R.H. the Prince and Princess. All the wax-work figures form in a row, under the direction of Lord Chamberlain LATHOM; the machinery is put in motion; they all bow to the audience; glasses are riveted on them; everybody is craning and straining to get a good view ”

“ THE ONLY ONE.—A ready-penning writer in his Daily Graphic notice of doings in the Houses of Parliament, winds up his description of giving the Royal Assent to Bills in the Upper House with these words—"So ends the ceremony, which seems to take one away from the Nineteenth Century"—a little sum in subtraction—i.e., take one away from the Nineteenth Century, and the Eighteenth Century remains ”

“ CAMPBELL had lightly spoken about "Members requiring a pick-me-up." "Persons enjoying the privilege of obtaining alcoholic liquors," was the way JEMMY put it, with a severe glance towards the abashed Knight of Kircaldy.
Business done.—Committee of Supply.
Friday.—Turns out to-night that MORTON doesn't approve the Triple Alliance. This would be awkward, in any circumstances. Peculiarly embarrassing just now with one of the principal signatories our guest. Emperor WILLIAM, was most anxious to come down to House ”

“ My friend—we will call him TOMMY TUCKER, (for I have frequently encountered him at supper, and am aware of his capacity) —is full of information. Some of our neighbours of an inquiring turn are asking one another who that is, and who this is, and so forth; and when the answers are incorrect, or even before the answers can be given, TOMMY TUCKER has replied in a low voice, with a view to imparting general information gratis, that So-and-So, in scarlet and silver, is Mr. ”