Punch: Punch (76.1879)

u PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVAKI. [Makch l, 1879

'"IT'S A LONG LANE THAT HAS NO TURNING!"

Small Boy {to timid Younger Brother). "Come on, Bill! 'Ere's the End of 'im at Last!"

being provided for—I feel it will be all right, and ask no questions.
In I get, and off we go.

From this moment I see I can relieve myself of all responsibility.
I feel more than at home, as I lounge back in the pair-horse
brougham comfortably, most comfortably rugged and wrapped. The
sensation is, " This is mine ! I am monarch of all I survey (I can't
see out of the windows for the steam, which makes them into ground-
glass) , and emancipated from trouble, or responsibility, the poetry
comes out of me thus :—

I'm monarch, of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute;
I know that I've nothing to pay—

A sum which my pocket will suit.

[Happy Thought,—Poetry in me is a sort of Ballon Captif. The
ropes are the responsibilities and troubles. Cut the ropes, and the
Poet soars aloft. How about coming down again ? Let the gas off.
But—well we must not press a simile so far.]

Mosthyn Dickie's carriage is delicious. We are at the gate of
the Manor House. In a few minutes we are at the Mansion itself.

Mansion! _ Yes, quite a Mansion ! It is of the Italian Portico
style, and with its steps, pillars, and capitals, it gives you the idea
of a Public Library, or Club, having stepped out of St. James's Square,
or Pall Mall, or a British Museum Junior which had forwarded itself
down here for a little change of air.

Country House! Not a sign of it. That is, according to the
received Old English type—the sort of thing, for example that
Mr. Caldecott loves to illustrate, and wherein he excels. But at
Meadowsweet Manor there should be a surrounding of Italian
gardens, of Signori and Signoritas, with mandolines and guitars,
greyhounds stepping daintily with one foot up in the air, monkeys
led by black boys, in turbans, silks and satins, and a scowling
Italian hiding behind a pillar of the portico, fumbling at a stiletto
in his best doublet, while he eyes a young couple in whom he
evidently feels the very deepest interest.

This is the scene suggested by Mosthyn Dickie's Manor House.
But this picture is for summer, and now the snow is on the ground,
except where it has been carefully swept away from the drive and
from the steps, which are exactly like those leading up to the British
Museum, or the National Gallery, only without the policemen or the

sentries ; and under the portico above are wide glass doors, more than
ever suggesting the idea of some public Exhibition—say, for example,
the " Old Masters " at Burlington House—so that I can scarcely refrain
from asking the official in plain clothes—the Beadle—whether it is a
free day, or whether the admission is by payment; and, having
resigned myself to this sort of Exhibition idea, I am looking round
to see where are the respectable individuals, who, as at Burlington
House, live in pews in the hall, and play at pawnbroking all day by
giving tickets for umbrellas deposited with them— [Happy Thought.
My Uncles ! ]—and where the man who takes the money, and who
won't give change, is to be found, when, as a footman takes me out
of my great coat, I hear a hearty voice coming along the hall,
exclaiming—

" Bravo! I never thought you'd come in such dreadful weather!"
and Mosthyn Dickie has come out of his sanctum, and is grasping
my hand heartily. _

THE KHEDIVE'S LITTLE GAME.

That slipperiest of sovereigns, the Khedive, has tried to wriggle
himself out of the bonds to which, in the pinch of impecuniosity, he
had voluntarily submitted for the benefit of his_ creditors and the
good of his country. But instead of dismissing his Minister, Nttbak
Pasha, he gets up an emeute of discharged officers against him and
his English right hand, Mr. Rxveks Wilson, and so forces the
resignation of the one, and, as he, no doubt, hopes, the retirement of
the other. He may find that England and France, who have taken
something very like the position of official liquidators towards this
dodgy Egyptian bankrupt, decline to see this little game through the
Khedive's spectacles. He may yet have to accept "Winchester
measure," as inscribed on the walls of William of Wykeham's
school-house:—

"Aut disce, aut discede, manet sors tertia, cccdi."

" Learn your own bonds to bear, or quit;
Or—third course—come to cuffs for it."

Inscription and Description (for Parliament). — Satis elo-
quentice, sapientics parum.