This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

IX.
GRAPE-SHOT.

It was the President's birthday on the morrow, and, naturally, great preparations had to be made for the suitable celebration of so notable an occasion.

Not only was the Club to be particularly Sporting, Dramatic, and Literary, but it was also to be markedly Social and hold high wassail with cakes and ale—at any rate with cakes; or to be meticulously exact, with a Cake, a Birthday Cake of noble proportions and suitable inscription.

A special feature of the day's festivities was a series of "moving" tableau-vivants to be staged for the delectation of the members, honorary members, and guests bidden to the feast whereof the said Cake was the pièce de résistance.

Subjects selected as being suitable to the occasion, to the limited stock of stage "pro-

111