Punch (94.1888)

JUNi? 30, 18S8.J

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

iii

4 4 OILLO-O-O ! Ahoy there !! ! "

XI The Voice—a strong but silvery one, a blend, as it were, of the two sorts of " Sirens " (fog-horn and pretty girl
to wit)—sounded, like that of Mrs. Bkowning's " Great God Pan," down in the reeds by the river.

Mr. Punch, who was " paddling his own canoe," ref ponded with a sonorous " Aye, aye ! " turned with one dexterous
stroke his canoe-poiut shorewards, and—came plump upon old Father Thames, the unmistakeable " reverend Sire " himself,
but " so neat and so clean and well-flannelled withal," that Mr. Punch, accustomed of late years to the sort of mulberry-nosed
mudlark of the metropolitan Thames-reaches, started in pleased surprise at his old friend's picturesque spick-and-spanness.

A moor-hen scuttled away through the reeds, and a kingfisher flashed like a winged jewel across the creek, as the
prow of the Sage's canoe " pointed " at the recumbent Sire of Streams.

" Why, Father, I hardly knew you! " cried Mr. Punch.

" Because I appear in my native shape, undisguised by dirt, and unattended by dead dogs," responded Father
Thames, sententiously.

" Well, flannels and a clean face certainly suit you better than a costume a la chiffonnier, and reeds and kingfishers
are worthier of your poetical antecedents than a retinue of long-shore rubbish." So the Sage.

" Of course," said Father Thames. "But Civilisation has treated me badly. Precious few kingfishers left, I can tell
you; cockney sportsmen and sham ornithologists have taken care of that ! By the way, you '11 find a beaker of Iced Deli-
ciousness down in the moss there. Spare it not,—any more than I hope you will the pernicious fools who do their best to
exterminate the Thames fauna I"

Then was there music as of nectar sweet

Glug-glugging from some high Olympian bottle;
The sound of shandy-gaff descending fleet
The Sage's throttle.

" But that's not the only bone I have to pick with Civilisation," pursued the Hoary Sire. " They've churned my
upper reaches into saffron mud with their pestilent Steam-Launches, and converted my lower ones into a malodorous drain
with their trade-refuse. They've potted my moor-hens, and peopled me with sewer-rats. Where they have not been able to
make me unclean, they have made me cockneyfied. But they might Defend me !"

" Oho ! " cried the Sage. " Then you too, 0 aged Recluse of the Reeds, 0 venerable Solitary of the Sedges, have
been seduced by the Modern Magazine, have been lured into the maze of Contemporary Polemics ! "

" Mr. Pdnch," said Father Thames, with energy, "a Recluse may be a Patriot. And who should be a Patriot if not
I ? Once indeed, long, long years ago, my stream was dishonoured by a foreign ship with a broom at its mast-head. Well,
well, never mind. But I don't want it to happen again ! ! ! "

" Naturally," rejoined Mr. Punch. " National Defence is a subject which is now attracting a lot of attention. The