Punch: Punch (50.1866)

256

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI [June 16, 1866.

STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM.

Air—“ Loves Young Dream."

Oh ! the days are here when Beauty dines
At eight o’clock.

When Miranda sips her sparkling wines.

Or hock, still hock;

New peas may bloom,

And whitebait come
From Thames’ improving stream,

But there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As strawberries and cream ;

No, there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As strawberries and cream.

Though the taste be tempted various ways,
By teal or char,

Though the swell in future dining days
May name a plat;

He ’ll never meet
A dish so sweet
In Soyer or Careme,

As the dish he took at Beauty’s feet
Of strawberries and cream ;

As the dish he tried at Bella’s feet
Of strawberries and cream.

No—that day in June is not forgot
A.s “Queens” I taste,

When first a lover’s arm I got
Around her waist :

The sugar shed,

She shyly said—

(’Twas somewhere close t,o Cheam)

“ Oh! there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As strawberries and cream,

No ! there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As you and strawberry cream.”

Financing.

SIC VOS NON VOBIS.

What’s the Good or toor Tomkins trotting out hts beautiful High-Chest
Notes for the Benefit of the Pretty Girls in the opposite Meadow ? His
friend Smith (behind his back) is getting all the Credit for them, by
merely Opening his Mouth and Gesticulating tenderly with his Shoulders.

Mon share Punch, — Why don’t you start as a
Minister of Finance, and establish a laughing-stock ex-
change in the West-End?

I am, mon share, yours, semper ridens,

A Sixty per-Centaur.

I

A BATHE OR TWO AT BIARRITZ.

Revered Punch,

While you have been as usual enlightening the world, and, to
do so, slaving hard amid the fumum et opes strepitumque Romce (which
of course means London), I have been serenely sojourning in France,
and by no means, J assure you, have I envied you your labours. I fancy
somebody has said that the misfortunes of our friends are rather, on the
whole, a pleasant theme for contemplation ; and living as I do without
a newspaper to worry me, I find abundant leisure for this amiable
reflection. While I tranquilly illumine my fifteenth cigarette, I think
of my friend Rottenborough trembling for his seat, and my friend
M oney bagge in fear of a recurrence of the panic. Sitting by the shore
of the lovely Bay of Biarritz, and listening to the waves as they tumble
on the sand, I care little lor the troubled seas of politics or panics.
Thank goodness, I’ve no seat in Parliament to lose, and no money in
mad schemes of speculation either. Were Mr. Bright Prime Minister,
and all small boroughs swept away, and had all the banks in England
suspended their cash payments (except the one on which you draw for
me your welcome little cheques), the news would very little disturb my
calm serenity. Beatus ille qui procul negotiis: happy lie who for a
fortnight can forgot there’s such a word as “business” in the dic-
tionary.

This Biarritz, my Punch, is a vastly pleasant place, even at this
nearly depopulated season. Indeed, I like a desert better than a crowd ;
of which a Londoner in June is pretty certain to grow weary. There is
nobody of note here now, except myself. I am the monarch of all that I
survey upon the shore, and my right to all the flotsam, and jetsam I may
see there, nobody at present has attempted to dispute. I can dine without
the clatter of a crowded talle-d’hote, and find the dishes hot, and the
waiters cool and civil. The Spanish swells and swellesses will flock
here a month hence, and the Villa Eugenie will soon receive its charming
mistress. Then there will be costumes marvellous to see, and ladies
who walk out will have to mind their pieds and queues, or they will

terribly get trodden on. Quadrilles will then be gaily flounced through
by the mermaids who will cluster on the shore, while the mermen splash
around them, and puff the light cigar beneath the white umbrella; and
ever and anon the fairest of the fair and the fattest of the fat will
challenge one another to a six-foot race of swimming. “ C'est sur cette
plage coquette,” my railway guide informs me, “ que se presse chaque
annee une population elegante de haigneurs.” They whom Montaigne
calls la race moutonniere will flock here by the hundred, following their
leaders, and be fleeced, no doubt, a little by those who give them pasture.

But I care not to behold this elegant population. A girl with her
back hair down is a pretty sight enough, but let her toilettes ravissantes
be kept to decorate the drawing-room. To my eyes flaunting fashions
would disfigure the sea-shore, and I find the fresh sea breeze far sweeter
to my nose than bad tobacco smoke and patchouli. My ears too now
are free from braying bands and squalling singers, and all the other
noisy nuisances that make a sea-side season hideous. The only music
I now hear is the frothing of the waves as they break upon the beach
and the tinkling of the bells upon a distant yoke of oxen. Walking
through the town, as is my custom sometimes of an afternoon, I hear
maybe a goat-herd playing on his pipe, while his goats bleat out a cry
that they are ready for their milking. In the evening a few workmen
sing their chansons on the benches in front of my hotel, but there is
nothing of the clumsy British tol-de-rol about them. I hear the cooks,
too, sweetly warbling little snatches from Beranger, and serving up a
soufflee with a fragment of a song. But no street-musicians worry me,
and no street-boys shake my nerves by whistling shrilly in my ear.
Indeed, I doubt if street-boys ever whistle much in France; and,
blessing upon blessings, no nigger tunes are heard here.

Bathing is the only way in which I stretch my limbs, and when I
wish to bathe, I have the beach all to myself, and should be as startled
as was Crusoe if I saw another footprint. Then [ sit and smoke and
watch the curl of the blue waves as they break upon the beach, or
whiten round the rocks which lie scattered picturesquely here and
there along the shore. Then I stroll towards the town, and see the [