Punch (32.1857)

to count English and French guns, as he would not own one more for the world—no, not for Con-
stantinople. Francis Joseph, too, lias a brother Maximilian, and he is here to express the ecstacy of
Austria at the prospect of our Prussian alliance being drawn closer by Hymen."

" Tu, felix Austria, nube," said the Comet, " is a hint which he delights to find others can take."

" Nube—in a cloud/' said Mr. Punch, smiling. " A passable jest from a Highness from Cloud-
land, but scarcely bright enough for me—however—let it go. Then, your Serene Highness, in Belgium,
Leopold the Astute, finding the priests flying something too frantically at the throat of Liberty, has flogged
them off, for the hour ; but she will never walk about in peace, poor thing, until they are chained up as the
Belgian people will chain them in the next Revolution. Pius the Ninth is making progress—do not
start—only through his dominions, crowning pictures of the Virgin, which Wink with pleasure, and
actually mutter " La Salette." The innocent Isabella again muses on the sweet joys of maternity,
and vows, should she be blessed with a daughter, to make her an example of all the Virtues, to which
end baby is to be sent from Spain before she can even see."

'' And your own Queen?"

" Is troubled, thank Providence, by no greater care than the direction of the baptism of Princes*
Beatrice, and the consideration whether at the Handel Festival, the Conquering Hero should come twice."

" And Lord Palmerston. I have had an eye on him for these seventy-three years," said the
Comet. " I had a good mind to appear at his birth, and prognosticate his becoming a great man,*'

''You are a humbug," said Mr. Punch. "Where was he born?"

The Comet stuttered—and said it was a good while ago, and the place had escaped him.

" He was born at Broadlands, you astrological humbug," said Mr. Punch, " where I hope he
will spend many a jolly year yet, especially his Reform Bill Year, now fixed as 1858."

" Lord Palmerston a Reformer," said the Comet, looking troubled. " Hm. Well. Ah ! "

" Don't, mutter in that way," said Mr. Punch. " If you know anything, out with it like a man
and a Comet, if not, don't be mysterious. Lord Palmerston has promised a Reform Bill for next year,
and I am going to keep him up to his work in my Thirty-Third Volume—"

"Is the Thirty-Second complete?" said the Comet, tremulously.

" Complete," said Mr. Punch. " I present you with a copy. Here ! "

" If a New Volume of Punch is to be launched, I'm sure the world wants no Comet," cried the
individual in asbestos trowsers. " I shall not show."

And he bolted through the window into infinite space, taking with him, for the edification of the Solar
System,

VOL. XXXII.