Punch (74.1878)

178 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. Obil 20, 1878.

A POSER.

Sergeant-Mayor. " Now, Private Smith, you know very well none but Officer1? and Non-Commissioned Officers are

allowed to walk across this grass ! "

Private Smith. "But, Sergeant-Major, I've Captain Graham's verbal Orders to--"

Sergeant-Major. "None o' that, Sir! Show me the Captain's verbal Orders! Show'm to me, Sir! !"

before. I had to give poor Nuffinmore his gruel. A table! d
table / "

Her sweet laughter echoed in his ear. Her eyes dwelt softly
on him, as he drew her to him and pressed the tip of his fevered
nose, on which the warm hue lingered, fondly, flatteningly against
that unblushing lovely face, that knew nothing more perfect than
its own unbounded cheek.

"You do not eat," she cried, as she helped herself plentifully to
the rich, fragrant tripettes aux echalotes sent especially for this
banquet from one of Strapmore's Chateaux en Espagne.

"I cannot," he replied, and his voice was hoarse, and fierce with
passion, " for I am in love! "

" And yet your Templars of old were stout knights and doughty
warriors! " she whispered, as her face in all its witching mockery
was turned towards his under the rose-tinted lamp-light.

His face was white comme un navet; he was her slave, her ser-
vant, her page boy, booted and sparred as a tiger, and he gazed on
her with all the mad, savage, idolatry of a tiger's love.*

* Editor to Authoress, by Special Private Wire, tres presse.—Admirable
simile, this ! We remember how in Miss Braddon's Aurora Floyd a groom
fell in love with his master's daughter, and she with him, and we can quite
imagine what would be the effect on a young tiger, who perhaps might have
entered into the Lady Regula's service coming straight and straitlaced
out of an ordinary Sunday school. I am sure that where we have retained so
much, you will excuse us for having omitted a few details of this excruciat-
ingly passionate scene. Maxima debetur pueris, you know, and though
"our boys " are printer'sparvi diaboli, yet we think, in our Editorial discre-
tion, it is just as well to draw the line, we mean drop the line, somewhere
occasionally; and, when we drop a line, we make a rule. You will under-
stand this as meant technically of course.

Authoress to Editor.—I do not understand you at all. Pura omnia pueris,
whether diaboli as yours, or angeli non Angli, as the fair-headed acute
Angles were in the four corners of the Roman market. "What you omit,—at
your peril be it. Ne faites ancune fleurante betise ! Tous mes lecteurs
I'aiment beaueoup. Allez !—W.

Editor to Authoress (by post).—Tou are, of course, sans peur et sans

Miladi's French maid tapped discreetly at the door.
" Pas encore," was Miladi's reply.

Strapmore had no eyes save for the object of his rapt adoration,
or he might have noticed the pale face, and the sad beautiful eyes
of the soubrette, as she timidly withdrew. Was her disguise so
perfect that he did not remember the features of the Loo-Loo whom
he had cast off in England, and sent to wed the boy Axf Pinto?
No: he was mad, blinded by this one wild absorbing passion, and
he neither saw, nor heeded.

t He poured out champagne, moselle, hock, burgundy, all into one
silver goblet wreathed with roses.

" Buvez, jolie creature, Buvez-en ! " he cried rapturously, as
taking from her white hand the aile da chapon that still lingered
in it, he placed the cup to her fevered lips, and poured down her
snowy, transparent, heaving throat, this libation to the gods.

Then they crowned themselves with the rare mustard and cress
from the salad, bowl, and clashing together the picked drumsticks,
they careered round the table in frenzied energy.

Old Lord Nuffinmore, whose chambre d coucher was just below,
rapped at the ceiliag with the poker, getting on to a chair to do it.

Then with her golden silky tresses falling over his shoulders, and
her bright teeth gleaming between her parted lips, Strapmore
folded her up, and flattened her out, in his strong iron-clad embrace.

" My loveliest! Si tu m' aimes comme je t'aime, moi, Jamais un
couteau ne va couper en deux notre amour ! " he hissed hoarsely in
her ear.

" Jet'aime comme clignant I'ceil!" she murmured, and laughed
that silent muffled laughter, that had in it a sound so low, you
might have heard it in the depths of Les Sept Cadrans, or at the
end of Le Haut Chemin de Ratoliffe.

His eyes dwelt on her marble shoulders that shone under the
blaze of the brilliant chandeliers, and he felt that his idolatry out-

reproche. Every line of yours is full of poetry, certainly. But we 're afraid
that our space is a little limited, that's all. Don't mind us. It's most
exciting. Capital. Pinish up.—Ed.