(With acknowledgments to Mr. KIPLING.) I went into a private 'ouse to get a place as cook; The lady ups an' greets me with a most angelic look: "I've just been makin' tea," she sez, "I 'opes as you will try These little scones wot I 'ave baked;" and to myself sez I: "It was Polly this, an' Polly that, an' 'Polly, scrub the floor,'

Turn down a side street, walk a little way and you are in a nest of mean streets, unpaved, dirty, smelling vilely, lined with open booths, where squat half-naked men selling lumps of sticky sweetmeats and piles of things that look like unbaked scones and other strange eatables; and little naked babies tumble in the dust with goats and puppies.