Punch (93.1887)

210 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [November 5, 1887.

THINGS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE EXPRESSED DIFFERENTLY.

Quest " Well, good-bye;, Old Man !—and you 've really got a very nice little Place here ! "

East. "Yes; but it's rather Bare, just now. I hope the Trees will have Grown a good bit before you're back,
Old Man !"

CONVENTION-AL POLITENESS.

Madame France (with effusion)—

" And doth not a meeting like this make amends ? "
I trust I have quoted with textual accuracy your bo charming, and
to the actual situation happily appropriate poet ?

Mr. Bull (avee empressement). It does—or perhaps I should say
doth—indeed, Madam. As to the bit from the bard—well, may its
appropriateness never be less ! How much pleasanter than the grim
dictum of an elder rhymester, who referred to your psople as those
" Whom nature hath predestined for our foes,
And made it bliss and virtue to oppose."

Madame France. The barbarian! Oppose, indeed! "Why should
we oppose each other, dear Monsieur Bull ?
Mr. Bull. Why, indeed ?

Madame France. True, your bellicose Lord Paimerston did
oppose my great Ferdinand's grand idea, and that from motives the
most insular and unenlightened. Just as some few poltroons in your
sea-girt isle at present oppose the Channel Tunneh which yet, in
good time, will doubtless become as benign an actuality as the Suez
Canal itself.

Mr. Bull. Humph! Pam had perhaps his reasons, which, in the
light of subsequent events, one must admit not to have been without
their weight.

_ Madams France. Oh, Monsieur Bull ! " Greater freedom of
intercourse between nations is the tendency of our industrial and
social development, and the tide of human intelligence cannot be
arrested by vague fears." So I read in a pamphlet on the Tunnel.
How true, is it not ?

Mr. Bull. Doubtless; as true as that the tide of invasion could not
be arrested by cosmopolitan cant.

Madame France. Invasion ? Fie, Monsieur Bull I In the new
lexicon of international amity there is no such word.

Mr. Bull, If the excision of the word could absolutely abolish the
possibility ot the thing, all would be well—between you and Germany,
for instance.

Madame France. Sacre-e-e! I beg pardon. Expletives should
also be banished from civility's lexicon. But Bismarck is a monstre,
a miserable,— whereas you-! [Bows sweetly.

Mr. Bull. Inarticulate flattery, Madam, is irresistible—and unan-
swerable. The renewal—if, indeed, it was ever really interrupted—
of the entente cordiale between us, is a blessed boon not to be matched
in value by a hundred—Tunnels !

Madame France. And this Convention is the sign and seal of that
renewal, n'est-ce-pas ? I knew you never intended to stop in Egypt.

Mr. Bull. Longer than was necessary—assuredly not, Madam.
And I was certain the New Hebrides had no real charms to perma-
nently arrest your feet.

Madame France. Though a pied d terre in Raraitea, of course—
you comprehend, Monsieur!

Mr. Bull. Perfectly. The questions of Egypt' and the New
Hebrides, of our post near the Pyramids, and; your Protectorate
near Tahiti, have, of course, no real connection.

Madame France. Obviously, Monsieur I Are they not dealt with
in separate Conventions ?

Mr. Bull. Ah I if all quarrels—I beg pardon, political problems—
could as easily be settled by a Conventional Act!

Madame France. How welcome to you, Monsieur, to all parties in
your Parliament, to the "rescuers" as to the "retirers," to your
Lord Chamberlain, as well as to your Grand Old Gladstone, must be
the prospect of an early, not to say immediate withdrawal from the
Land of the Pharaohs ! Surely the fugitive Israelites of old never
left it with such pleased promptitude as you will—" scuttle out" of
it I Have I accurate memory of the Beaconsfieldian phrase,
Monsieur ?

Mr. Bull. Your memory, Madam, is miraculous. The forty cen-
turies—or, however, many more there may happen to be there at the
moment of my departure—will doubtless, in the words of your own
great phraser, "look down from the Pyramids" with emotions not
less marked than my own—and yours, Madam.

Madame France. My emotions at the present moment—and yours,
I hope, Monsieur—are simply of supreme joy at the so happy removal
of difficulties and the so complete restoration of amity between us by
this charming Convention, so satisfactory in its aotual terms, so
much more so in its promises for the future. I felioitate you, dear
Monsieur Bull.

Mr. Bull. And I, Madam, reoiprooate your felicitations. (Aside.)
It pleases her, apparently, and I do not see that it can possibly hurt
me ! [Left bowing.