Weihaiwei, Oct, 23.—We have a little stranger in our house named Archibald, and I think that his name requires some explanation. I admit that he arrived without any official i vitation, so when he romps across floors, furniture, walls and ceiling, there is no doubt that my wife has some legitimate cause for complaint: when I said we must let him stay she said "certainly not"—and so I called him Archibald. This habit of calling small creatures by high-sounding names arose, I believe from the operetta "Tom Jones" in which the barber had a favourite leech called "Lizzie" who was always getting lost. Well, it's just the same with Archibald....and I quite forgot to mention that he is a small pale-grey lizard bearing the family name of Gecko: he has a beautiful tail which finishes up like a query mark, and wide-toed feet shaped like a fan (with suckers attached for sticking to walls) which gave him
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.