"Pa," said Imogen Pumbottle, "Isn't the polka a national dance?"

"A national dance!" replied old Plumbottle. "Let's see. A step forward—then two steps backward. Yes, I guess it is a national dance, judging from the degeneracy of the American nation."

Have you ever noticed how many women go to a ticket window in the subway or on the elevated, ask for their ticket, and even expect to have it in their hands before they begin to look for the nickel to pay for it?

Have you ever waited in line while a woman in front of the ticket seller opened her shopping bag, took out her handkerchief, groped for her pocketbook and, when she found it, lingeringly searching through its compartments for a five-cent piece?

A woman is unfortunate in having no convenient pocket that she can dip into for small change. Her money is usually inside something that is inside something else. But isn't this all the more reason why she should have the consideration and forethought to get out her change in advance in order not to delay others?

Needless to say the woman who holds up the line at the subway ticket office does the same thing when she buys theater seats or railway tickets.

Hers is a prominent place among public pests.

We like to defend our indulgencies and habits even though we may be convinced of their actual harmfulness.

A man can convince himself that whiskey is good for him on a cold morning, or a beer on a hot summer day—when he wants whiskey or beer.

It's the same with coffee. Thousands of people suffer headache and nervousness year after year but try to persuade themselves the cause is not coffee—because they like coffee.

"While yet a child I commenced using coffee and continued it," writes a Wis. man, "until I was a regular coffee fiend. I drank it every morning and in consequence had a blinding headache nearly every afternoon.

"My folks thought it was coffee that ailed me, but I liked it and would not admit it was the cause of my trouble, so I stuck to coffee and the headaches stuck to me.

"Finally, the folks stopped buying coffee and brought home some Postum. They made it right (directions on pkg.) and told me to see what difference it would make with my head, and during that first week on Postum my old affliction did not bother me once. From that day to this we have used nothing but Postum in place of coffee—headaches are a thing of the past and the whole family is in fine health."

"Postum looks good, smells good, tastes good, is good, and does good to the whole body."

Name given by Postum co., Battle Creek, Mich. read "The Road to Wellville," in pkgs.

Postum now comes in two forms:

Regular Postum—must be well boiled.

Instant Postum—is a soluble powder. A teaspoonful dissolves quickly in a cup of hot water and, with cream and sugar, makes a delicious beverage instantly. Grocers sell both kinds.

"There's a Reason" for Postum.

In writing of her experiences in America, Madame de Hagermann-Lindencrone tells of the arrival at Cambridge of Ole Bull, the famous violinist:

"Ole Bull (the great violinist) has taken James Russell Lowel's house in Cambridge. He is remarried and lives here with his wife and daughter. He has a magnificent head, and that broad, expansive smile which seems to belong to geniuses. Liszt had one like it.

"He and Mrs. Bull come here often on Sunday evenings, and sometimes he brings his violin. Mrs. B. accompanies him, and he plays divinely. There is no violinist on earth that can compare with him. There may be many who have as brilliant technique, but none who has his feu sacre and the tremendous magnetism which creates such enthusiasm that you are carried away. The sterner sex pretend that they can resist him, but certainly no woman can.

"He is very proud of showing the diamond in his bow, which was given him by the king of Sweden.

"He loves to tell the story of King Frederick VII. of Denmark, who said to him: 'Where did you learn to play the violin? Who was your teacher?'

"Ole Bull answered, 'Your majesty, the pine forests of Norway and the beautiful fjords taught me!'

"The king, who had no feeling for such high-flown sentiments, turned to one of his aides-de-camp and said, 'Siken vrovl!'—the Danish for 'What rubbish!'"—Harper's Magazine

There are many curious betrothal customs in Germany that are found no place else in the world. Many of them are pretty. All of them are odd.

As soon as a German girl is betrothed she is addressed as "bride" by her fiance. The betrothal is a more serious affair than in America and is not so easily broken. The girl is called "bride" until the wedding, when she assumes the title of "wife."

Immediately upon the betrothal the lovers exchange rings, which, if the course of true love runs smooth, are to be worn ever afterwards.

The woman wears her betrothal ring on the third finger of her left hand until she is married, and then it is transferred to the third finger of her right hand.

The man continues to wear his ring just as his wife wore hers when she was a bride. There is no chance for him to pose as if he were a single man. One can tell at a glance if he has achieved matrimony, and German girls believe that this is the safest way, as it keeps other girls from flirting with their fiance or husband. The wearing of the wedding ring by the German men is said ot have made the divorce percentage small.

According to Freud, the great German authority, a large percentage of the weaklings who figure in divorce trials and in dissolute circles owe their abnormality to the fact that each was an only child. The care with which they were shielded from contact with anybody less favored and the way their normal impulses were suppressed gave them the perverse conception of love, marriage and other relations which makes them the pitiable figures they are today.

A Norwegian writer has been poking fun at our methods of conversation.

It is good for us occasionally to see ourselves as others see us. This critic is intensely amused at the well-bred American person who regards it as impolite to talk about anything that is interesting to himself, to refer to anything that the other person does not know, or to disagree with the expressed opinion of another.

It is obvious that, with such limitations, conversation in the real sense of the word is quite impossible.

The unwritten law that one must not talk of oneself is on the face of it a stupid and restricting one. Probably it originated as a protection against the arrant egotist, the individual who pauses neither for dissent nor approval, but who maintains a steady and forcible flow of words until the listener loses consciousness of time and space and becomes faint and giddy through sheer exhaustion.

Such a person is not a conversationalist, but a lecturer, a deliverer of homilies or sermons.

The interchange of ideas is the basis of all conversation meriting the name.

Very different are the ideas of literary men regarding conversation. Did not Dr. Johnson say that every man has a right to speak the truth, and every other man a right to knock him down for it?

Hazlitt gives a description of conversation as it was among the illuminati of his day, the men who were interested in "ideas." "They squabble and quarrel over an idea like dogs," he says, "but they pick it bare to the bone; they masticate it thoroughly."