THE TRAGIC SIDE OF THE TOTE. THIS is a truth the poet sings (Though where I cannot say): And, when the Tote on you and me Death to the bookmakers. There may be some survivors who So when we take the Epsom road They gave the odds; they also gave Remember too, when with the Tote niture cover the risk of its forcible | published in Transition in the issue of The fault in the main lies with modern architecture. The merest glance at any book on mediæval fortress-building will convince you that ample provision in the way of barbicans, arrow-slits, oubliettes, and apertures for molten lead was made by our forefathers to guard them against contingencies like this. By putting a chain, however, on the door of "Sans Souci" and purchasing one of those pistols which projects, on being discharged, a quantity of soot into the face of the intruder, you ought to be able to defend yourself and your little house until the excitement about the 1928 Budget has blown over. The words of the quotation as you give them, "The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the tortoise is heard in our land," are incorrect. "Tortoise" should read "turtle." Although the early spring does excite emotion in the breast of the tortoise, even causing it to move as much as three or four yards across the lawn on an exceptionally sunny morning, this creature has never been known to sing. "SPORTING." Oxford won the Halma in 1872. "GEOGRAPHICUS." With reference to my exceedingly interesting article on Afghanistan pub Then let our thoughts dwell kindly on lished two weeks ago, you are perfectly The bookie's form and face, When into exile he has gone From his familiar place; Far from the scenes where ladies air O. S. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. "ANXIOUS." I understand your difficulty. No sooner did your handsome suite of fumed-oak furniture, bought on the deferred payment system, come rolling up the road to "Sans Souci" than you received a note from the office of the Collector of Taxes, printed in red ink and containing the offensive words: "I HEREBY GIVE YOU FINAL NOTICE that if the amount be not paid or remitted to me at the above address within SEVEN DAYS from this date, steps will be taken for recovery by DISTRAINT, with costs." As you rightly observe, what about it? Does the insurance policy which you received with your fumed oak fur right in saying that the Safed Koh, which divides the Kabul from the Kuran, has no geographical connection with the Hindu Kush, and is not to be confounded with the range of the same name in North-Western Afghanistan. It is certainly not to be confounded, and I shall be very much annoyed if it is. So will KING AMANULLAH. The words and tune of the Afghan National Anthem may be obtained on application to the India Office, or personally from Lord BIRKENHEAD. "STOCKBROKER" (Sussex). Yes. It was a bear. MOTHER OF FIVE." There is some more to it, but not so good. I cannot recommend to you a better volume of memoirs than Extractions I Have Made, by an old Dental Practitioner (DIGGER AND PRODD), which records all the most famous molar removals of the last few years of the nineteenth century, together with many interesting anecdotes of the behaviour and conversation of great men and women in chair." It is profusely illustrated with reproductions of original drawings and is fairly certain to be one of the publishing successes of the early spring. "THEATRE." the Never mind, "MOTORIST." vere! Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem. Eat more fruit. Does the petrol-tank leak very much? As the long spring days lengthen out no doubt all your minor worries will right themselves, and you will be able to recapture the joy of the open road once more. AINTREE." It is impossible to say whether the Church is likely to make a promising between the Dean of ST. PAUL'S and career for your girls until the quarrel" the Bishop of DURHAM as to the adOrders has been settled, by personal holds a good outside chance. He is entrusted visability of admitting women to Holy Nor did I. "Mr. EVOE. Midland Paper. owner and trainer: My horas with my modest bed on the race.'"' A heavy handicap, but a pleasant variThe poem you inquire about was ation of the customary shirt. combat or otherwise. "LITERATURE." CONGRATULATIONS, MRS. TWINKELBORN! I HEAR YOUR DAUGHTER IS ENGAGED TO THAT NICE SAPPER MAN." YES, WE'RE VERY PLEASED. CEDRIC IS SUCH A DEAR, AND SAO CLEVER. HE PASSED STRAIGHT INTO WOOLWICH WITHOUT EVER GOING TO SANDHURST AT ALL!" MY IDEAL AGENCY. I AM shortly going to start a Literary Agency of my own, because I have an idea that there is an opening for a completely new type. Part of this idea came to me when I was talking to a young lady about railway accidents, and part -the better part-when I was in my bath; so you can see that the two brainwaves occurred separately. Briefly my idea is this. The Apple Ideal Agency, Limited, will, in addition to the routine placing of its clients' work with editors, concentrate particularly on supplying local colour to those authors who through laziness, bad luck or lack of initiative cannot obtain it. The fees will be high; but then so will be the standard. This is how I picture it:I shall be sitting in a large arm-chair in my Agency's office. In front of me will be rows of electric buttons. A young woman with a wild eye will be ushered in, my first client. "Oh, Mr. Apple, I am stuck completely in that instalment for the Tale Teller. My hero has got himself into a railway accident and I know nothing whatever about "Excuse me, Miss Softe," I interpose. stories. gallantly as I press a button. "Allow old Mr. Mincing, of Tooting, the well- With a brisk air Number Ten will step up and begin : "I'm afraid, Mr. Apple, I must be running a little dry. I've just had a story returned-quite respectfully, of course-by the Editor of The Far Globe, pointing out that the setting and descriptive passages are identical with "All around were crumpled carriages, those in a story I wrote for him a year torn engines, spoilt luggage-vans piled ago. The plot too happens to be the wantonly as if by some giant hand. same, but, as you know, that doesn't Clouds of steam rose about me, dim- matter in the least, the great thing for ming my spectacles and obscuring the magazine stories being to retain the view. With trembling hand I lit a same plot but to change the setting cigarette at a burning suit-case, for by frequently." great good luck, though I had started Exactly, Mr. Mincing!" I exclaim, in a non-smoker, my head and shoulders pressing another button, which brings now projected into the next compart- in a lean elderly man with a face like a ment but one, in which by the legend fried shoe. "This is our Number Seven. on the starred window I saw that solace Number Seven, Far Eastern colour, was permittedplease." "There, Miss Softe," I interrupt, "how will that line do you? My charge for this class of goods is a guinea per ten minutes. You will take a couple of guineas' worth? Certainly. The Local Colour Studios, each fitted out with writing materials, are this way. Thank you. Quite possibly my next visitor will be "Swaying in the litter on my bearers' shoulders I looked over the sea of hostile ebony faces that surrounded me.. Assegais were waved threateningly, safaris were brandished, the insistent throbbing of tum-tums was in my ears. Huge coalblack forms crowded in upon"Something not quite so dark," murmurs Mr. Mincing. "Certainly," I say. "A lighter hue, Number Seven. Show some beige." "Very good, Sir. Draining my third stengah after tiffin and throwing the empty glass at my 'boy,' I strolled out of the Palang Club into the scented Eastern night. Suddenly from the hibiscus bushes a wanton brown maiden, who, though she must have been nearly sixteen, was clad only in "I think," interrupts Mr. Mincing nervously; "you see, in Tooting I "Oh, quite. Try something a shade lighter still, Number Seven. What about saffron or amber? They dress fairly voluminously in China, I believe." "Out of the hot Eastern night, heavy with the scent of opium and smouldering chung-ping-pong, an impassive yellow face looked suddenly into my own "Splendid!" cries Mr. Mincing. "I'll take some of that," and off he goes, to be succeeded, a moment later, by Miss Dulcima Duodenum. Miss Duodenum has the face of a horse and the mind of a main-drain, and she writes openly about the Facts of Life. Damned hot, Apple, isn't it?" she begins in her spirit of friendly sex-camaraderie. "Heard the latest story about the barmaid who?" "Yes," I say hastily. "Surprised at you, then. It's frankly not nice. Look here-I'm in the devil of a hole for a really good bedroom scene for the climax of my next novel." This of course is where the Apple Agency will have to be careful. we "I'm afraid," I murmur. "You see 'Oh, never mind about the people. They always carry on the same. What I'm bothering about is the room itself. I had sheerest purple pillows in my last, together with quite orange lights and absolute green silk hangings." "Oh, I see!' I press a bell in a relieved manner and Number Eighteen enters. "Number Eighteen, Miss Duodenum, is late of Bollinghams, the bedmakers and furnishing experts" "Delighted, Miss! If I may suggest. . . . Have you ever used the idea of a bedroom upholstered in the most passionate red flannel?" And so Miss Duodenum goes off, and a moment later I am listening to Mr. Flacke, who writes with difficulty a monthly story based on the eternal triangle theme. Our Number Five deals with him. Number Five is a geometrical expert and introduces Mr. Flacke to a new world by explaining the uses of an eternal pentagon. And so my morning will go on. I shall be prepared for every demand. I can even foresee Mr. Brille, the writer of detective stories, coming to my office and being shown our Number Twentyfive, just out of Dartmoor, who will hold him up and relieve him of his watch and spare cash (less agent's commission). For Mr. Brille may find he is unable to satisfy his public with what he can gather from mere verbal local colour. But I have not yet started my agency; one thing is holding me back. I am afraid that with the present increasing demand for crook plays and crime fiction, Mr. Brille may go further and require practical illustration of something really new in the way of murder. And I, poor slave to duty and my ideals, shall press a button and, when our Number Seventy-Eight (straight from the underworld of Chicago and quite unprejudiced) appears, may have to say: "Er-just murder me in a new way, will you? For our client, Mr. Brille." A. A. "CITY MEETING TUMULT. HAREHOLDERS RUSH THE DOORS." Headlines in Daily Paper. Probably under the impression that the Greyhounds of the Law were after them. NOTHING-IN-THE-SLOT, THE sea-front had an out-of-season. aspect; but then it was the end of January, the most out of season of all the out-of-seasons. An elderly seafaring man was making lobster-pots of withies on the lee side of a boat, and in the roadway opposite the landward end of the pier two men had made a hole. I stood for a moment looking down upon them. But the one with the brown waistcoat had an unresponsive eye, and I feared to risk a pleasantry. I passed instead on to the pier without paying, for there was no one to pay. Under a shelter half-way along the pier I came upon a little nest of penny-in-the-slot machines. Involuntarily my hand went to my pocket-it shows how bored I was. And as it did so I was startled by a little man who rose from a secluded seat and hurried towards me, his hand uplifted. "Don't do it, Sir," he said in a wheezy voice. I stared at him. He had on the back of his head a bowler hat of about his own age but some three sizes too large for him; and he wore two seedy overcoats, the outer one so evidently smaller than the inner one that I longed to suggest that he should try reversing them. "Don't you do it, Sir," he said again. "Don't do what?" "Don't go wasting your pennies. Them machines is mostly out of order; and even if they weren't. 'Ere, if you want to put a penny in, you give it to me.' He held out his hand with so imperious a gesture that, before I knew what I was doing, I had placed a penny in "Which one do you want? asked. I felt, was a born financier. I handed picked it up again. "Nevermind; better . our" pennies was good "we should lose them. So I'll just tell you about it." With this he dropped the pennies quietly into his trouser pocket. "You puts the penny in. A bell rings, and that door there opens. See?" I saw nothing but that the penny had joined my other two in his pocket. But he went on joyously. "Out comes the fire-engine, or GEORGE, TAKE THIS. it. "But if they're out of order. "Which one do you want?" He spoke in the firm patient voice that one uses to an unreasonable child. I don't know why I didn't resent it. I pointed instead to the football-match.. should do. Three men on it, there are, in 'elmets. Now, see that fire-escape? A fireman comes up it, and as 'e does so a red light lights up in the winder. Up the ladder 'e goes, and then down 'e.comes again with the baby in 'is arms. Then the engine goes in, the door shuts and you 'ear the penny drop down inside the machine. There's no money back this time," he added as an afterthought. "So I guessed," I murmured. "But this is the one," he cried, taking me by the arm and hurrying me up the pier to the far end of the shelter. "This really is the one for you." Confronted with the one for me I felt a slight shock, not only at its subject but at its alleged connection with myself. Above the machine was the legend, "The English Execution. Last Rights," and the glass case contained a model of a repulsive building with two policemen on the balcony. "Realistic execution, Sir; thrillin' spectacle. Penny, please." "I've no more pennies," I said. "I can give you change," he "You've got a shilling?" He "We'll imagine," he went on, warm- | cried. he ing to his work, "that the ball's come produced a handful of pennies as by up. The yellow-and-black jerseys is magic and, reduced to impotence by this yours; the red-and-blue jerseys is mine. time, I gave up my shilling and had Now you presses and yours kicks; now eleven pennies from him in return. I presses and mine kicks. Now the "When this machine is working "ball's your end. Now the ball's my he was speaking now in a sepulchral end." He was becoming quite excited. voice "the lower door opens slowly. "Now it's back your end again. Ah" Prisoner's there with a rope round 'is "That takes tuppence," he said; "one-he turned to me, real regret sounding neck, and the chapling waving 'is arms for you and one for me.' in his voice "you pressed too soon like this. Ex'orting him," he added a then. Your man kicked backwards. little vaguely. "Then "-his voice Blowed if you ain't kicked it into your dropped almost to a whisper "the own goal. So I gets my money back." Solemnly he produced one of the pennies from his pocket, placed it in the tray on to which the machine should have ejected the winner's penny and He held out his hand once more. This was too much; I couldn't allow him to think me such a mug as that. Yet to refuse meant an end to the adventure. I have said that I was bored, and I didn't want the adventure to end. His assurance was so admirable; here, trap-door opens and the prisoner drops down. Reealistic." He shook his head. "Best thing they've got." We stood there solemnly together. Almost I took off my hat. Then, though |