1.

I have at least succeeded in getting one of my pictures on the walls of the academy this season, and while I have been overwhelmed by the compliments of my friends, I have been struck by the lack of appreciation or taste in art matters by the public at large.

I was there opening night and could not help overhearing the remarks of some of the flippant critics.

“I wonder how much the painter of that thing expects to get for it?” asked one young lady of her escort, who is a dauber who has tried for years to get a canvas accepted. “Well, I don't know,” replied the puppy; “but I should think that three years would be about right!” Two picture dealers seemed to be interested in it, so I listened to their remarks. Says one of them: “I wonder why they hung that thing?” “Perhaps because they could not hang the artist,” replied the other; and then the first, who was really not the fool he looked, said a remarkably good thing which is worth preserving: “Do you know what would be a good name for the picture?”

His reply was so clever that it is presented in the nature of a conundrum: what would be an appropriate name for the picture?

2. Couldn't Tell a Lie

“George Washington!” exclaimed his irate Mother, “your father says he never turns his back without his cigarettes disappearing. He left a full box on his desk when he went to the village this morning for a bracer, or some kind of a tool he wanted and when he came back, half of them were gone. While he spoke to the men folks about it, a half of what were left disappeared. He went over to Franklin's place to get some fusil oil to wet some sort of a whistle he was fixing and when he returned, once more they had been halved. Then he comes and complains to me, just as if I had been smoking, and now finds just one left, and you tell me you did not touch one of them?”

“Mother,” said the truthful son, “that one that’s left is the one I didn't touch,” and when his fond parent ambled home-ward to cut a cherry switch, he got there first and cut the little tree off close to the ground and hid it.

Now then, as a historical fact, can you not see that this little incident proves just how many cigarettes they used to put in a box in those days?

3. A Marking Puzzle

Draw the above figure with one continuous mark without crossing a line. A difficult fact is to place a piece of paper before a mirror and draw the design while looking at the paper through the mirror.