Punch (49.1865)

70

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [August 19, 1865.

LINES TO AN OLD LADY.

(BY A YOUNG MAN ANXIOUS FOR THE CERTAINTY OF THREE
MEALS A-DAY.)

They tell me of the price of meat;

I care not what its cost may be.

It matters little what I eat.

If I can feast mine eyes on thee.

The primest joint man ever saw,

In festive trim at Christmas shown,

These longing eyes could never draw
Away from gazing on thine own.

Oh, Love! They talk of mutton-chops,

And praise the tints of white and red

Contrasted in the butchers’ shops;

I ’ll contemplate thy cheeks instead.

They smack their lips when they survey
The tempting steak with eyes that shine :

Eut nought could make me so display
Emotion, save that mouth of thine.

Ah! what is veal, though matched with ham P
Thy whiter hand withdraws my mind.

Oh! can I, in a leg of lamb.

Aught like thy foot and ankle find ?

Shoulder of mutton, what is that,

Although with onion sauce allied P

The fairest cut of lean and fat
To me is nothing by thy side.

The sirloin may be dear or not,

The ribs, the brisket, and the round,

I know not, and I ask not, what
Those joints are selling at per pound.

I do not sigh, I do not weep
Of meat’s ascending price to hear.

I hold it altogether cheap;

Thyself, alone of all things, dear.

NO OFFENCE MEANT.

Where ought a hoary tippler to live P In Gray’s bin.

THE NAGGLETONS ON RETURN FROM THE

COUNTRY.

Mr. and Mrs. Naggleton have been spending a few days at the House
of a Friend in a Southern County, Ihey have returned to-day, and
converse after a late dinner.

Hr. Naggleton {holding up his wine-glass). I drink your health, Mrs.
Naggleton, and congratulate you upon your safe return to your
household gods.

Mrs. Naggleton. Don’t talk nonsense, and above all, heathenish
nonsense.

Mr. N. Well, we will say your household goods. There’s no harm
in that, especially as furniture is one of your idols.

Mrs. N. I have no idols, and I do not see why a woman is to be
sneered at for wishing her house—her husband’s house—to be properly
furnished. You certainly lose no time in throwing off the mask which
you have been wearing for three days.

Mr. N. I only wish I had worn one, for I am scorched worse than the
sole we have been trying to eat.

Mrs. N. It was not the cook’s fault. She had not known that we
were coming, and then she was ordered to get dinner in a hurry.

Mr. N. And why did she not know ?

Mrs. N. Because she was not written to.

Mr. N. And why was she not written to P

Mrs. N. Because you, with your usual ridiculous indecision, could
not say which day you would leave Mr. Afplejdram’s j

Mr. N. 1 like that. I do like that. When you yourself were watch-I
ing and dodging to find out whether the Appledrams were going to
give a dinner-party while we stayed. You only agreed to go when you
found that it was a hopeless date—next week, or you would have
stopped till now.

Mrs. N. Of course I misconducted myself. I always do. Of course
I scorched the sole.

Mr. N. Never mind about misconduct. The sole, yes, because when
you had actually succeeded in making up your mind, you would not let
me telegraph.

Mrs. N. Telegraph to a cook!

Mr. N. Why not. Ha! ha! She has a battery de quizeen of her
own. H a ! ha!

Mrs. N. We are at home, Henry, and there is no further excuse for
the childish nonsense which you have been drivelling for three days.

Mr. N. Well, we must all laugh sometimes. I thought that we had
been tolerably jolly.

Mrs. N. To be laughed with is one thing, but it is another for a wife
to sit and hear her husband laughed at.

Mr. N. {getting angry and rude). He deserved to be laughed at for
taking such a wet blanket into the country with him. No, I retract.
I did not mean that—I take it back. But you are a refrigerator, you
know, or what it is now the fashion to call a thermantidote.

Mrs. N. Don’t resume the mask; be as insulting as you please.

Mr. N. What nonsense you talk about masks. What do you mean ?

Mrs. N. Hypocrisy, Henry, has been described as the tribute which
Yice pays to Virtue. But the tribute is too often paid in bad money.

Mr. N. My wig! but that’s an epigram of the first water. I saw
that you were reading a good deal in the country.

Mrs. N. I can smile at such a taunt, Henry. I don’t affect smart-
ness. It would not do for both of us to be pretenders to wit.

Mr. N. {floored). Very good, I’m sure, very good, and very affec-
I tionate and wife-like.

Mrs. N. How you fly out at the slightest attempt at retort upon vouj
eternal attacks. But 1 am told that such is the way with joke-makers
of a certain order; they are the most thin-skinned creatures going.

Mr. N. I am not flying out, though I was never much more inclined
to go out.

Mrs. N. Pray do not let me detain you. I hope I can make allow-
ance for what you must have undergone in being obliged to be civil to
your wife from Saturday to Wednesday.

Mr. N. I should always be civil to you, and a good deal more, if you
would let me, but your temper is so extraordinary that you construe a
kind speech into a wrong, and turn it off with a pleasant mixture of
sarcasm and ice—not delightful even in weather like this.

Mrs. N. Remember that you are drinking your own wine, which is
fiery, and not like Mr. Appledram’s.

Mr. N. Do you mean that I am excited ?

Mrs. N. I simply mean to give you a caution, as you are speaking
fast, and with needless violence.