Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/327

Ardent Egyptologist (who has lately joined the Civic Guard). "No, I seem to have lost my enthusiasm for this group since I noticed that Bes-Hathor-Horus was out of step with the other two."

After a long period of immunity I have had a cold. To be precise, I still have it as I write, although it has once been cured.

The miscreant who cured it was a chemist in a West-end thoroughfare to whom I was so misguided as to confide my trouble. He had all the appearance of a man and a brother―in fact he looked benigner than most―and I trusted him. He listened with the utmost sympathy, his expression indicated grief and concern, and his voice took on a tenderness beyond that of a mother.

"I can set you right very quickly," were his brave words. "I have here a cold-cure that has never been known to fail. You take one of these little tabloids every three hours, and to-morrow morning you will wake up well. Be sure not to take more than six in the day," he added.

He held up the little bottle as though it were a jewel.

"And how much?" I asked, feeling that for such a boon no money was adequate.

"Two shillings," he replied; "and you might perhaps like to take one now."

I agreed, and with infinite solicitude he prepared a small glass of aqua pura and smiled at me like a bearded Madonna.

I went away feeling that complete recovery was merely a matter of hours, and for the rest of the day I was punctual with the tabloids. By night I had taken four.

I awoke the next morning not only full of cold, as usual, but with a splitting headache. When it was time to get up the room began to rush round me. Returning to bed, I fainted.

With great difficulty I dragged myself up, but all day my head swam and throbbed, and periodically I found it impossible to focus my sight on anything near by. Meanwhile I sneezed and coughed with more than accustomed vigour.

An instinct warned me not to go on with the cold-cure, and a medical friend corroborated my good sense by explaining later that it evidently contained some very powerful drugs, of which quinine was the chief, and I was suffering from them.

The next day my cold was worse but my head slightly better.

To-day my head is normal but my cold is terrific.

And now I want to know where I should be, in English law, if I were to stand outside that chemist's shop, as I long to do, preventing people from buying his cold-cure. What should I get, beyond Mr. Justice Darling's quips, if the chemist ran me in? Is it worth trying?

"THE BUKOWINA.

AUSTRIANS REPORTED TO HAVE LEFT TRUTH HERE."

Liverpool Echo.

Recent "official" telegrams from Vienna tend to confirm the report.