Punch: Punch (81.1881)

54 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [August 6, 1881.

COMPARING NOTES.

"A Dull Season? I think not! So many People have given Dances, you know!"
"Not in our Set, at all events—for ws've not been asked to any!"

THE t/iVFORSAKEN.

Aik—" The Forsaken."

He stood beside St. Stephen's gate?

His feet were near the portal's sill,
And much he mused upon the fate

Like to befall his cherished Bill.
It entered. Mellow as a bell,

His sweet voice followed in a song;
'' He will return, I know him well;

He will not leave me here for long! ''

And there he stood as hours on rolled,

Mindful of every groan and cheer ;
He heeded, not the heat, the cold,

But Cairns's wrath and Salisbury's jeer.
He heard the boom of the big bell,

And still he piped the same sweet song—
"He will return, I know him well;

He will not leave me here for long! "

" He '11 never stay. In vain the hope

They '11 let him pass unchallenged there.
Amendments—changes—will he cope

With all, in Carlingford's fond care ?
Would i" were there, his foes to fell!

But, weakened, or still stout and strong,
He will return, I know him well,

He will not leave me here for long! " ?

Another Eastern Question.

We have received a prospectus of the New Mustapha Hotel in
Algiers. " The necessity for such a place," says 'Arry in Algiers
''is quite evident from the name, 'Must 'ave a 'Otel.'" We
haven't taken shares, and don't intend to.

NOTES FOR RIVER CURRENCY.

Dramatic Authors find it difficult to invent a good title for apiece,
and more difficult to get a good tag. Try Tagg's Island on a beauti-
ful Sunday afternoon in summer-time. Sure to have an Inn-spira-
tion, and plenty of it. Select company here : only the Tagg, very
few of the Rag, and no Bobtail.

In Dickens's generally excellent Guide to the Thames he, though
a close observer, has not hit on the following remarkable fact:—
When the weary and parched rower wants to find out that third-o'-
the-way house where he may slake his thirst ("Slake" is a nice
word—slaking with cider cup is an icera) he has only to look out for
somebody on the bank fishing, and behind that solitary fisherman is
safe to be a public somewhere concealed. Land boldly, ask him,
don't spare his blushes, and he '11 tell you.

A Guide to the Thames.—Bravo, Mr. Dickens ! But why should
Old Father Thames want a Guide at all! Let us consider " why."
Well, because he wanders.

But he 's not old—look at him now in this weather. Father
Thames ! Young Brother Thames ! Sister Thames! See our River
Plate this week. Who wouldn't like to be one of those Trespassers !
As we look at them—and there are more where they came from, and
a lot more hidden away on this island—we feel—you feel—everyone
feels—that he could go on trespassing until the shades of evening
gather round, and we then cry out, " Beware ! Trespassers beware—
of Rheumatics!"

Afghanistan.

Latest News [by Russian wire).—Herat. Here-at-it again.

Question to be asked by Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett, M.P.—Cm we
apply to Abdurrahman to return the guns and rifles we gave him,
when we presented arms to him as Ameer, as he has no further use
for them.

Question to be asked by anybody who has nothing better to do.
—Is A Durham Man in England likely to sympathise with
Ab-dtjrrahman, late of Candahar ?