he best examples of both English and foreign workmanship, in regard to every portion of any sort of room, from the walls to the carpets, from the lightest trifle of Louis Seize furniture to the heaviest Renaissance cabinet of, say, Henri II., is carried out with care and skill. The dining-rooms are fitted mainly with pieces that recall the names of English designers and cabinet makers that are now household words Chippendale, Sheraton, Heppelwhite, the Brothers Adam, and so on--but the earlier periods of Elizabethan and Jacobean oak are not forgotten, and in their modern dress are induced to conform to their present day environment with perfect ease and grace. Some of the rooms here are cleverly contrived to display, within a small space, a number of styles. We give a photograph o' a corner of one of these salons, showing the way this idea is carried out. Here may be noted a remarkable reproduction of the early Louis XVI. marquetry commode, or side table with cupboards, etc. The original is now in the South Kensington Museum near by. Any observer coming freshly from the antique piece to this admirable copy of British production will find very few faults with the latter. The workmanship is certainly as fine, the inlay as painstaking, the metal-work as finished. But as regards the colour of the woods, time, who takes so much away, has given a warmth and beauty to the elder piece which will tax the scientific skill of the modern imitator to reproduce. This last quality of age in wood is, however, wonderfully well obtained or simulated in a collection of satinwood furniture in a room given over to this branch of delicate and pleasing work. Here the card-tables and light cabinets that helped to make the drawing-rooms of our Georgian ancestors so charming are seen to bear that fine appearance of age without wear which we apprehend is the ultimate art of the craftsman who produces these specimens of cabinet-work. The beauty of the

old, and the strength and durability of careful modern work, appear to be the ideals which this firm set before them, and to which they attain at no very great expense. The rooms decorated for sleeping, dressing, and bathing purposes, show a vast variety of styles which are eighteenth century in feeling, and made of perfect examples of satinwood or well-chosen. mahogany, with inlays in the Sheraton manner, and are most attractive. Some of these are decorated with plaques of Wedgwood ware, after the fashion which that skilful potter made at one time general in England, and extremely popular on the Continent. From these luxurious surrounds one may turn to the "fitted rooms of a shooting-box, or the mitigated

strenuousness that a yacht's cabin can be made to grant. In these fitted rooms the furniture is attached to the four walls, thus space is saved, and comfort assured, after a manner that might be applied more generally with good effect.

What Messrs. Aldin do in furniture they can also carry out in all other branches of the building

r restoring of the house. Many mansions, long given over to neglect and the ravages of time and weather, have bloomed again under their care and skill. At present they are just completing extensive alterations and decorations at the United Service Club, having obtained the order in competition with several well-known firms, and the work will have been executed in the remarkably short space of time of three months. From Wellington's monumental bath to the latest trifle of silk damask, from the prayer-rug that aided the devotions of the pious Persian centuries ago to the most recent examples of our native makes of carpet, from Louis Quatorze to the Empire, from a Gallic credence to the last word of a "new art" washingstand, all these things, or their exact reproductions, can be seen to advantage in the pleasant home-like rooms at Queen's Gate Gardens.

E. M.

There's a pair in the opposite Pullman-
D'you see? Now he's lowered the blind!
A girl and a boy-a child and a toy!

Ah me-but the porter is kind.

There's an innocent trust in her lip-line-
Dear soul! Not a cloud on her mind!

And where will they go? I'm sure I don't know

But she's leaving her husband behind.

In the whirl of the figurantes' kicking

The maze of the flickering lime-
A glorious face that shows not a trace

Of languor-the vice of the mime.
With a laugh on her lips red with kissing
(And grease paint!)-She lives for the time-
And knows a man's word alone has deferred
Her arrest for a hideous crime

And he boasts of his thousand employées

That people his works night and day

(In workrooms that stink !)--The brute! Does he think That the girls keep alive on his pay?

In the coffin the body of Isaacs

And mourners are thick to the door

The church is in tears-he died, it appears,

On Tuesday-this "friend of the pore."

On the coffin-plate blooms of narcissus

And wreaths in a heap on the floor

He's passed o'er the brink-his wife called it drink

He's "asleep," so they say -" gone before."

MACDONALD HASTINGS.

EDITOR (to Mr. Newman): One minute, if you will excuse me. (Continuing dictating to Secretary): "you will then proceed to St. Petersburg and wire us a column of bright, chatty interview with the Tsar and another with Count Witte, in both of which you will kindly bring the Morning Trumpet prominently before their notice. During your two days' residence in the capital you can also do a series of thirteen authoritative articles on Russia from the Core'; a few light pages for the Tip-Top, with titles such as, The Humour of Anarchy,' 'What it Feels Like to be Frozen to Death,' and so forth, and photograph anything of interest for the Gigantic. If time hangs on your hands you might also continue your 'Mr. Wazygoose Gose His Ways' diary and drawings for Phunny Wabbits. Cancel the Stockholm and Christiania detour, interest having subsided, and proceed direct to Trondheim, where you may as well occupy yourself with gathering material for the medieval Italian feuilleton which I suggested to you--changing the locale to Scandinavia, of course, and for Marco Polo, substituting as a hero, say, Gustavus Adolphus. (Turning to Mr. Newman.) Good afternoon, Mr. Newman. I see that you bring an introduction from my friend Snarling, who suggests that you can do useful work for us. Very good. (Looking at watch.) I think that I can just spare seven minutes. anything with you?

Have you

MR. NEWMAN (dropping some manuscripts and picking them up again): Eryes, a few. That is to say, I didTales, you know, but anything you thought

EDITOR (taking one): Ah! short stories! Excellent! I think our stock is getting low. How many have you with you? About eighteen? Oh, well; that's a start, of course. I suppose you could manage an average eight or ten a week as a regular thing. We require an immense number for our weekly Fountain of Fiction alone. The great thing is to catch just the particular style we require.

MR. NEWMAN: I, ah-hoped that you might like this, sir. I have spent a great deal of time and thought upon it -The Mirage of a Soul." It is an attempt to work out the natural development of a woman's mind and destiny in certain circumstances and under the influence of romantic surroundings.

EDITOR: H'm. Can't really say that the title strikes me as being quite catchy enough for the Fountain. Let me see how it goes on; perhaps I can give you some indication of the sort of thing I mean. Ah, north-east coast of Cornwall! Well, now, why not lift the thing bodily into London? How many of our readers have ever been on the north-east coast of Cornwall? On the other hand, make it London, and you are on terms with them straight off.

MR. NEWMAN: Well, really, of course, if you think it better; but, as a

Enter Mr. Newman, nervously.

matter of fact, I made rather a close study of the local colour down there.

EDITOR (turning over the leaves): Yes, I see. Page on page of purple tints, space, and aching calm. My dear sir, we should simply have to drop all that. Now, where do we get to anyone? Ah, here-" Mildred." Very good; and "Vivien Mountford"; yes.

MR. NEWMAN (wishing devoutly that he had chosen any other story to bring forward): They meet suddenly under romantic conditions. He saves her life, and before she can even thank him he has to fly for his own. For this I had to use-it's not very original, I'm afraid, but nothing else served so well-I had to use a mad bull.

EDITOR: Oh, a mad bull is all right. I don't think that we have had one for the past six months.

MR. NEWMAN: But you see the impossibility-in London?