Punch: Punch (96.1889)

March 2, 1889.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVAEI.

105

CLEVER WITH HOUNDS.’

MR. TOPPLE’S SECOND HORSE.

MOANS AT A MATINEE.

“ For years we ’ye come to this decision,

That lovely woman, blinds our vision ! ’ ’

The Gloomy Gargler of the Ganges.

I?T a well-cushioned ten-shilling Stall,

An elderly gentleman sat;

But he sat and. saw nothing at all—

His vision was barred hy a Hat!

For a lady was
sitting before
— I fear the
old gent
muttered,
“Drat! ”—
"When he saw
that her lady-
ship wore
A marvellous
steeple-
crownedHat!

It obscured e’en
a glimpse of
the stage,
"With feathers,
and flowers,
and plait;
And the playgoer got in a rage—

His pleasure was spoilt hy a Hat!

All the music he heard, it is true,

And sound of the dance—pit-a-pat;

But of singers and dancers the view
"Was hid hy that horrible Hat!

Thus for aught he could tell of the play,
He might have been blind as a bat;

He had nothing to do hut survey
The build of a frivolous Hat!

So he dodged it each side with a frown—■
And, testily, murmured he, “ Cat! ”—

He got up, but they all cried, “Sit down!”
He wished he could sit on that Hat!

How let Managers quickly decide
To issue at once their fi-a£,

That the ladies should all be denied
Such tyrannous use of the Hat.

For why should we ten shillings pay—

Can Managers answer me that ?—

To see, at a long Mati-nee,

Just naught but a feminine Hat ?

WHAT MR. PUNCH’S MOON SAW.

SEVENTH EVENING.

“ I love the Children,” said the Moon,
‘1 especially the quite little ones—they are
so droll. "Why ao you look like that ? I
will know. . . . Oh, so Hans Andersen
declares I said the same thing to him long
ago, does he ? I should have thought it
would have been more polite to put it down
to a ‘ literary coincidence • ’ hut, as you will
probably be able to find all that I was going
to tell you in his book, I shall evidently
waste my time in talking to you! ” said
the Moon, looking distinctly flushed.—“ Good
evening ! ” and, drawing a cloud around him,
he promptly became invisible. Mr. Punch,
however, “lay low and said nuffin,” and
presently, as he had foreseen, the Moon came
out again. “If you really want me to go on,”
he said, in a much milder tone, ‘ ‘ I will-
hut please have the goodness not to mention
Hans Andersen to me again. I know very
well that I am not clever, and that he was a
genius—but, for all that, one doesn’t care to
have words put into one’s mouth, even hy a
genius, does one ?

“ Last night, then, I shone down on a small
garden at the back of a suburban villa. Two

children, a little boy and a still smaller girl,
were digging in one of the side-beds; both
looked very solemn, and this was proper, as
they were engaged in a sad occupation. They
were burying the little girl’s doll, which had
died that morning, of scarlet fever and old
age. At least, the boy said so most positively,
and his sister,—although she would never
have discovered for herself that the doll had
died, and could not, even now, see any striking
difference in her ap-
pearance, — had too
much respect for his
opinion to dream of
contradicting it. So
the doll—a forlorn-
looking object, cer-
tainly, — was being
buried, and the boy,
who was grave-digger,
undertaker, and chief
mourner, all in one,
was enjoying himself
in a decent and sepul-
chral fashion. Before
he had quite finished
digging the hole,

(which he made deep
enough to hold a doll’s
house), the little girl slipped quietly away,
because, so I thought at the time, she could
not bear to stay to the very end. Presently,
however, she came back, carrying some little
china dishes, which, to my great surprise,
she placed in the grave with the doll. ‘ Far
the worms.' ’ she said in a whisper, and _ I
really think she found an odd comfort in
this forethought of hers, for when I left the
pair, she was planting a garden-stick bearing
an appropriate inscription above the doll’s
resting-place with what was almost a cheer-
ful air.”