Punch (74.1878)

196

[May 4, 1878,

"THE REJECTED."

He turned his picture as he spake,

Its face unto the wall;
He gave his doleful head a shake,

And said, " She was too tall—
Oh dear !

A precious sight too tall!

" The portraits to their owners go,
The dealers skim the line ;
That thing will stick by me, I know;
She always will be mine—
Oh dear!
She always will be mine I

" When day is gone and night is come,
And all are laid to sleep,
I think of little folks upstairs,
That I have got to keep—
Oh dear!
"Who would not wake and weep P"

A FELLOW PEELING.

!< A felloW feeling makes us wondrous kind."
Scene—Jingoland.
Enter the Great Bounce and the Great Ben, meeting.

The Great Bounce {with effusion). Ah! Good day, m' Lud!
'Ope I see you pootty bobbish. Proud, to make your acquaintance !

The Great Ben {with dignity). I have not the honour of yours,
Sir.

The Great Bounce. No ? Surprisin' that, m' Lud! I'm the
Great Bounce. I am, and one of your Ludship's most enthoosiastic
supporters. Heard of me, of course ?

The Great Ben {dubiously). Well, Sir, the name appears-

The Great Bounce. Ah ! precisely—

" Your name seems to be
Familiar to me;

I think I have heard it before "—

If I may quote one of my own sohps'as aperypo to the occasion, m'
Lud. Ha! ha! You know what Fletcher, of whatsername—seen
him mentioned in the I). T. dozens of times—said about writing the
songs of the people, /write the songs of the people, and sing 'em

too. You help make their laws, m' Lud. 'Appy thing for the
People that two great men like you and me pull so puffeckly
together.

The Great Ben {drily). I hope, Sir, that the People rightly
appreciate and appraise our respective services.

The Great Bounce. Oh, they do, m' Lud ; they do. I assure you
that when my audiences give a reglar round of cheers to my singing
of my great Patriotic War Song, " Look out for the Lash of the
Lion's Tail" they never fail to give a little one in for—

" Brave Beaky who has bid it wag,
To scare the foes of the good old Flag!"

The Great Ben, The compliment is as great as doubtless is the
song.

The Great Bounce. Not a 'aporth more than you deserve, m'
Lud,

The Great Ben. A tribute from Tyrt^eus is a tribute indeed.

The Great Bounce. Eh ? Tyr-, what's his name ? Think I

have seen it in the D. T., but don't quite recollect who the party
was.

The Great Ben. A patriot lyrist, Sir, like yourself, and a potent
influence, though some persons, at first, were disposed to pooh-pooh
him.

The Great Bounce. Oh, we big pots must expect that sort of thing.
They pooh-pooh'd you once, m' Lud.

The Great Ben {musingly). They did, and now--

The Great Bounce. We've got it all our own way, eh, m' Lud ?
Gladstone and his gang "not in it, dear boy," as we say in the
profession. That old party's off his chump, m' Lud, plain as a six-
foot poster.

The Great Ben {meditatively). Naviget Anticyram.

The Great Bounce. I say he ought to be clapped into Colney
Hatch, out of the way of mischief. But I think, between us, we
have just about settled him now, m' Lud.

The Great Ben {blandly interrogative). We ?

The Great Bounce. Yes, our lines are a little different; yours is
prose, though topping of its kind; mine, poetry, which of course
fetches 'em smarter. But in sperrit and purpose I flatter myself
we are decidedly dittos. That perryration of yours the other "day,
m' Lud, was a tall fly and no error. Couldn't 'ave piled it up
prettier myself.

The Great Ben. You are too flattering !

The Great Bounce. Not a rap. We know how to land 'em,
m' Lud. Give 'em plenty of British Lion and lots o' tail-lashing.
DEhBY was too damp for 'em, a regular wet blanket. Can't get
steam up with cold water, m' Lud.

The Great Ben. Or float an Imperial Policy in the tideless shallows
of timid common sense.

The Great Bounce. Ah! there we are again you see, m' Lud,
birds of a feather. You invent an Imperial Policy, I invent Saint
Jingo. The phrase and the figure pair off proper.

The Great Ben. Truly the lubricant of a metaphor frequently
facilitates the deglutition of a principle.

The Great Bounce {vaguely). Ah, dessay. Little bit of Sphinx
patter that, eh, m' Lud Y Beef-eating John Bull is learning to
stomach your Oriental Relish at last.

The Great Ben. Many Bulls of Bashan have I yoked in my
time, though, like Salisbury, they have roared, or, like Debby,
rebelled.

The Great Bounce. And havingdone so well with theBulls, youmean
to have a try at,the Bears, eh P Well here's luck, m' Lud! " Cave
in or cop it! " That's the talk for Bruin ! Jingo means just that,
and I guess Imperial Policy means much about the same. England
first served, and. the rest go snacks as they best can. That's the
line, m' Lud. Palaver about "right" is all cosmopolitan rubbish,
and " fair-play " is just pretty-pretty for Cocktail fudge. Glad I
dropped on you, m' Lud. I'll put the pith of our conversation into
a new War Song, and send yer Ludship an early proof.

The Great Ben {hastily). Thanks! thanks! And now, Sir, though
your talk is vastly improving, yet, as my leisure is limited-

The Great Bounce. Bight you are, m' Lud. Shall we drink to the
Success of the Imperial Policy ? You won't liquor ? Well, then,
here !—"The British Lion, and may his tail never unstiffen ! " Ta-ta,
m' Lud. [Exit, xoith a flourish.

The Great Ben {solus). The most trenchant travesty of a pictorial
Pasquin were edgeless compared with the personified parody pre-
sented by this swelling Ape. I feel as feels the traveller at a country
inn, who gazes on his own features hideously, yet recognisably, re-
flected in the distorting medium of a^rustic mirror !

[Exit, thoughtfully.

butter-merchant and m.p.

*Who should succeed Butt as Leader of the Home - Rulers ?
Big gar, as representing not Butt, but Butter.