MEMBERS OF THE ARISTOCRACY AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED SPORTSMEN MAY NOW INCREASE THEIR INCOMES BY FULFILLING THEIR EVENING ENGAGEMENTS IN THE STYLE SUGGESTED ABOVE. Faith, I must own You did give us fair warning." DUNRAVEN, too, Joins the same crew As DILLON, nay, as DALY; The new type blends Old foes as friends In the same galley gaily. So firmly fond That weaves all Pats together, And REDMOND stints his blether. Curses the screw Wherewith JOHN BULL doth bleed 'em ; And, nobly rash, Would make a dash For true (financial) Freedom! Oh! the Shamrock, the green (and yellow) £ s. d. Henceforth must be NOUGHTS AND CROSSES. (Her Answer to Verses last week.) How dare you write such versesSuch sland'rous rhymes, for shame! I'd have you to remember That two must play the game. I fear too little supper, Or some such slight alloy, Inspired your "Noughts and Crosses," At least you'll be delighted My partners all were charming; Have danced-just once, I may- You lent your "doubting demon" And let me add one whisper PUNCH, NOT "WHUSKEY." As everyone knows, it is the custom of the Scot to celebrate the birth of the New Year with copious libations. On the present anniversary, a "braw laddie " from Dundee in London was so overcome that he became " nae fou, but just a wee drappie i' the e'e." The next morningNew Year's Day-he was asked how he had enjoyed himself. "Hech! mon!" he said to his interlocutor, "we jest went amazing till they brought in the whuskey-punch. Amid the mystic Green Glare of the Then I fell. But mark ye, laddie, it wasna the whuskey, but the punch, that did it. A douce dommed flattering body Oh! the Shamrock, the green (and yellow) is that same punch, sae invigorating, that Shamrock! Sure, £ s. d. Henceforth must be Old Erin's typic Shamrock! I wouldna mind, d'ye ken, taking a sam- [And he did. (Not that you'll care one jot). Your thoughts of me were cross ones, My thoughts of you were-not! Snapdragon Bowl. Little Daisy. Oh, Captain BossWELL, do look at Aunt JENNY! She looks just as she does when I go to wish her goodmorning before she gets up! [And Captain B. and Aunt J. are an engaged couple. CAPTAIN OF THE WATCH (ARTH-R B-LF-R). "MY LIEGE! THE IRISH HOSTS, AT LENGTH UNITED, Farmer (to Swell, dressed "in Ratcatcher," who, having come out to hunt with a crack pack, is standing holding his own horse). "Now, JACK, HAVE A GLASS! NO WONDER YOU LOST YOUR LAST PLACE, IF YOU CAN'T HOLD A HORSE BETTER THAN THAT!" WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK. DEAR AND UNPEDANTIO MR. PUNCH, A Happy New Year to you! My holidays are made unhappy, more or less, by the news that some preposterous old papyrus-hunter somewhere in Egypt has dug up the works, or part of them, of a new Greek poet! Confound the old gravegrubbing ghoul, why can't he leave History's rejected manuscripts in Time's waste-paper basket- as perhaps you will this in yours! BACCHYLIDES is the old beggar's beastly name, it seems, and he is said to have been a rival of PINDAR! Now, if ever there was a crabbed old highfalutin gusher, hard as nails to construe, and dull as ditchwater when you have construed him, it is PINDAR! What can we want with another of him? I wish that the two poets had demolished each other for good, like the Kilkenny cats. But surely one Greek ode-grinder is enough for the universe! Now look here, Mr. Punch! England is now bossing Egypt. Let that splendid fellow, the Sirdar-Happy New Year to him!-put his foot down on grave grub Pyramid bricks, and that will be an addibing and poet-hunting like a cart-load of tional and splendid reason for holding on to Egypt! As for the papyrus fragments of old BACCHYLIDES which are found-make pipe-lights of 'em! See to it, dear Mr. Punch, and oblige thousands of British schoolboys, including Yours admiringly, BLOGGS MAJOR. A DREADFUL STATE OF AFFAIRS AT Lord Charles Highflyer (despondently). There's too much frost to hunt, and not enough ice to skate; all the horses are coughing; the gov'nor writes to say that he's going to endow a new church; BINGO wires that all seats are booked for a fortnight at any theatre worth going to; FANNY CANTERLY is engaged to that ass BLINKERS; I've a bill overdue on Tuesday; HUMMINGBIRDIE BELLEVILLE threatens an action for breach of promise; Aunt GENISTA hasn't weighed in as usual; and some idiot has sent me a card with a robin on it, wishing me "All the Compliments of the Season!" SPORTIVE SONGS. An audacious "detrimental" vows vengeance, and succeeds, in his dreams, with regard to a Damsel who has refused his advances on the previous evening at a country house. THE tiny rills, that seek the stream, Creep through the heather 'neath the fern, Unknown, forgotten as a dream That scarcely gives to night a turn. The winter snow, the summer sun, May make them wax and then decline; Are guileless of its thund'rous might. Is but a plaything of the beach, Yet in the coming by-and-by, When fierce the wave and high the blast, The cliffs will learn their doom is nigh; The pebble wins the game at last! A man of worth and dauntless pride By watch and valour ever cleft; As princess in a fragrant land, But then there came a stalwart knave A many-witted lad was he His many wits made her his slave, This is a song I sing to you In feeble rhythm, halting rhyme; But 'tis the story still as true As when it hymned the Birth of Time. I will survive your bitter slight, Your scathing taunts, your great disdain. I will- I wake! By George, it's light! And I must catch the early train! Filial Economy. thought you intended to turn over a new Irate Father (to young Hopeful). I leaf, Sir! Young Hopeful. So I did, but there were such a lot of blanks on the old page that I thought it would be a pity not to fill them up! [Begins the New Year with a fresh turnover-of parental cash. At Frangipani's Restaurant. Customer (inspecting bill). Here, waiter, you've charged me eightpence for coffee! I've never paid more than sixpence before. Waiter. Ah! but, Sir, Signor FRANGIPANI 'ave jost buyed a new coffee-machine. A SUGGESTION TO MADAME FRANCE (in want of a representative in London).Why not try the effect of a French polisher on British oak? READY-MADE COATS-(OF-ARMS); OR, GIVING 'EM FITS! "BUT ITS THANK YOU MB G-BS-N B-WL-S WHEN THE UBERALS ARE IN POWER. THOMAS, VISCOUNT B-WL-8 OF THE BOSPHORUS. Arms: Quarterly; 1st, an heraldic cap'en or cuttle-fish sapient, holding in sinister tentacle a master-mariner's certificate; 2nd, two pairs of ducks, worn alternately for distinction, displayed proper; 3rd, on a mount arabesque a diminutive cavalier in his glory urgent (motto, "Noctem in rotingro"); 4th, an eastern khalif or sultan on a field sanguine, charged with a halo for benevolence. Crest: A demi superior purzon erect collared, semée of hurts displaying regal hauteur, charged in the middle with a nautical telescope effrontée. Supporters: Two sea-dogs or antique "saults" regardant timbretose, arrayed all proper, couped at the elbow and knee, and the limbs replaced by artifice. IN THE LONDON FOG. "B. AND S." writes as follows from Chickweed Park, Hants: In the interest of science it may be well to record a plain statement of the impression made on the overwrought and peculiar organisations of two individuals by the fog in London the other night. The night of its appearance I was stay ing at the Grand Hotel, Northumberland Avenue, with a friend, and we both sallied forth dinnerless by way of the Strand to the Gaiety Theatre, stopping several times en route the journey from Charing Cross occupying just over two hours. We agreed to sup after the play. On arriving at the theatre we both experienced a dull, dead depression of the brain, and neither of us can even now tell what was the name of the piece, or what it was all about. How we get back to the Grand through the murky gloom I know not. Our symptoms can only be described as those of semistupidity, and the hotel porter, who helped us into bed, was clearly of opinion that we had had too much chloral, for he begged us to be careful with the matches. We slept dead-dog sleeps, unconscious of everything, and woke late the next morning, incapable of eating breakfast. There was a kind of buzzing in my head, with a nauseating desire to avoid food. We resolved to return to the country at once. Somehow we reached Waterloo station, and were rolled like milk cans into the train. What happened during the journey neither of us knows, but luckily the guard was an old friend, and pulled us out at the right station. Still the same stupor oppressed us, and when we got BARON B-RTL-TT OF SHEFFIELD. cally flaunted (motto, "Without stain "); 2nd, a swazi chieftain dancetté, Arms: Quarterly; 1st, sable a turkish imperial star and crescent quixotilabelled "Silomo," armed and accoutred proper, and habited-well, ahem!suitably to a tropical climate; 3rd, on an heraldic provincial platform a knight rampant and demonstrant charged with a peroration grandiloquent to the last; 4th, a private chart proper, showing the principal ports and soundings on the coast of Poland, discovered and surveyed by the present baron. Crest: An splendour which never sets. Supporters: Dexter, a more or less british lion in american or spread-eagle bearing the union-jack displayed, over all a sun in fury bearing a fire-arm proper periodically discharged at random; sinister, a russian bug-bear passé and out at elbows, suitably bound for transport to the wilds of hysteria. Second motto: "Oh, Swaziland! my Swaziland!" home the manservant and the gardener had him, despite my own wretched plight, carefully tucked up in bed. We slept for Next day I awoke, feeling no better, and fifty-three hours, with intervals for the discovered that I had retired to rest in my consumption of soda water. This evening hat, placed my boots under the pillow, hung I am rather better, but it has taken my trousers out of the window, and put me all day to write this letter. The my watch and chain in the water-jug, swollen feeling of our heads is decreason crawling to my friend's room, I found ing, but the burning pain of the eyecouch had not been slept upon. Seriously the parched condition of our tongues, rethat he was nowhere visible, and his balls, the shaking of our hands, and alarmed, I was about to pull the bell for main. What has happened to us? assistance, when I heard stertorous noises any scientist explain? The moral is, in the roomy old-fashioned kind. My poor be no doubt that they contain a brumous proceeding from the wardrobe, one of any case, avoid London fogs. There can friend was doubled up in it, feebly calling poison of hypnotic power. Will chemists "steward." I summoned assistance, and analyse it ? If so, our sufferings will not have been useless, since humanity will profit by them. Will View of St. George on Motor-car and the Dragon. end of the Chapter. - The |