Punch (60.1871)

Jtob 3, 1871.1 PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 221

COMPLIMENTARY.

Collier (about the Dog). "Yes, Sie, aw got him in Manchester, Yonder,
an' Doctor aw's going t' ax ye, hev y' ony objection tiv tjs Namin' him
efthek ye 1 ! "

Young Medical Man (rather pleased) " Oh, Dear no, by all Means—'don't
know about the Compliment, though, He'snot a Beauty to Look at !"

Collier. " Mebbees not, Doctor; rut—Smash!—Mun, He's a Beggar to
Kill ! ! "

A DREAM OF A DRY SUNDAY.

When leaves be green, and flowers be gay,

And skies be bright and blue,
A good place for a stroll on a summer's day

Is tbe Gardens and Grounds at Kew.

A sweaven I bad, in tbe montb of June,

Of a holiday full fair;
Of an out on a Sunday afternoon,

And I dreamt that 1 was there.

Tbe sun, methought, from mine each pore,

Made drops to trickle free ;
And all the hothouses the more

Did take it out of me.

The people all, both high and low,

Were in like case with mine ;
The men, each one, and the women also,

That all their cheeks did shine.

He that melteth away in the broiling heat,
As he findeth his strength to sink,

He waxeth heartily fain of meat,
And still more fain of drink.

Good liquor is ever a man's best stay,
What time when his force doth fail:

For a fellow that fainteth by the way—
No physic like right old ale !

For drought I dreamt they all went read,

Because for ale they lacked ;
Sit hence that none was to be Had,

By a Tavern-closing ^Act.

They cried, and roared, and raved amain,

And Parliament they cursed,
That had bereft them of their drain,

When they were parched with thirs4:.

So being mad, what wreck they wrought

To say 'twould not beseem.
Ye Prigs never drive good folk distraught,

As ye did in mine ill dream.

The One Thing Wanted.

Our Army E,eformers are in high spirits. They think
tbe good time has come at last. The War Office has
advertised for tenders for the supply of "20,000 heads."

PUNCH'S DERBY PROPHECY.

There, there, my Pensive ! Stow your gratitude. I am accustomed to do
noble and kindly things. In fact I rather like doing them. I have saved
you from all loss, you say, and I have conferred on you inestimable gain by
my Prophecy last week. Very well, you are thankful, and that is enough.

I might have led you wrong, you observe, for you have child-like (not
childish) faith in me. Of course you have, and your true and dear old Punch
■will never betray that faith. All the other Prophets were wrong, you state.
"Well, not quite all. My dear and venerable friend Nunquam Dormio winked,
and my very pleasant friend the Meadow was a trifle green. My noble
Sportsman for once aimed badly, and my respected Sporting Life did not look
quite alive enough. My esteemed Sporting Gazette would have put you into
another gazette, if you had betted your all on his surmise. Even my well-
beloved Era did not 'ear a true little bird singing. But they all gave such
good reasons for their beliefs that they all deserved to be right, and my faith
in ail of them is exactly as strong as it was before. Only the Sporting Times
bade you back Zephyr Golt, or Noblesse. I felicitate that prophet on his luck.
He is not at all like a pig, but like a pig he saw the wind, the West Wind.
Yet he could not quite put it into a bag, not being as wise as Ulysses, for
whom, you know, my Pensive, the winds were tied up in sacks, but his
avaricious sailors, thinking there was plunder, let them out, and came to
uncommon grief. Touching the winner of the Derby

" Whieh I wish to remark,

And my language is plain,"

I said that the Zephyr Colt had, just before the race, No Name, but that if
he were such a success as my friend Wilkie Collins' book, so entitled, he
would make a name for himself. I delicately alluded to a certain classical
story, which is taught to good boys at school, about the ancestry of colts with
atmospheric pedigrees. Well, do you think that I am going to claim that as

a successful prediction ? Perish the thought! I could easily prove that my
words clearly meant that Favonius was to win. I could easily prove anything.
But who was Favonius ? I turn to Dr. William Smith's Smaller Classical
Dictionary (a most useful book for gentlemen who want to be classical in a
hurry), and I find—

"Favonius. An imitator of Cato Uticensis, whose character and conduct
he copied so servilely as to receive the nick-name of Cato's Ape."

Evidently, my Pensive, this individual has nothing in common with the
winner of the Derby. My dear Pensive, I never prophesied at all. Not at
all, mark you! But I told you, in mystic lines adapted from the great mystic
poet of America, how you should invest. I said—

" Invest in I. v.v. and Nine."
I might tell you that " I " meant first horse, that " v. v." meant Fest Find,
which is the English of Favonius, and that "Nine" was the number of
Hannah, who won the Oaks. But I scorn such subterfuges.

The fact was that I proposed to you an investment which was certain to re-
pay you a thousand-fold for the paltry sum you would lay out. Happy such
of you as invested as I advised I It does not detract from my wisdom and
egoodness that those must have done so before reading my advice.

For, my beloved and Pensive, turn to my Derby number, and regard the
outside thereof.

There you read, or may read, the words and figures

PUNCH.—No. 1559 ! ! !

*' Which I wish to remark,

And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark

And for tricks that are vain,
The Heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I am free to maintain."

Rooey tooey tooey tooey too ! \Fxit.