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By Sir Dingleby Dabber. Perhaps some one annual, of more comprehensive design than its fellows, might even contain a portrait of the mother of Lady Mulberry Hawk, with lines by the father of Sir Dingleby Dabber. More unlikely things had come to pass. Less interesting portraits had appeared.

I may be in as great a hurry as you can imagine; I may be but a poor nervous wreck already, as I am; I may be quivering to be up and away from there, but he dabs me with his towel he dabs me until reason totters on her throne sometimes just a tiny tot, as the saying goes, or it may be that the whole cerebral structure is involved and then when he is apparently all through the Demoniac Dabber comes back and dabs me one more fiendish, deliberate and premeditated dab, making nine hundred and seventy-five dabs in all.

The polishing of the neck, or fingerboard with it, may be effected by making a small ball or dabber of about half an inch in diameter of fine grained flannel; this should be covered with another surface of closer material such as calico, but large enough to enclose the little bunch and to be tied up with a piece of string.

A portion of varnish being placed ready in a smaller saucer or any convenient porcelain article with a shallow even bottom, the ball or dabber will be moistened with some linseed oil and then its rounded face dipped in the varnish and rubbed briskly, but lightly, over the surfaces to be polished.

Outside the sculleries of the large hotels, or where banquets had been held, barrels of 'feast fragments used to be set. In these barrels the street-public were allowed to "dab" with a fork, at the rate of a penny a time, for discarded fragments of food. Occasionally a rich reward would fall to the enterprising "dabber."

These surfaces rapidly absorb the polish, while the oil in the dabber allows it to pass over without clinging. The rubbing should be continued until a smooth, glassy appearance comes and you feel sure that the wood has imbibed enough of the polish; this treatment may be continued over all the parts at which it may be desirable to have an even shining surface.

If there should be some uneven, clotted, or rough parts observable, a small ball or dabber made in the same way as the preceding, but used with spirit and oil instead of varnish, will work these down to a proper condition. For the dead surfacing, care must be taken that all is quite hard enough.