Punch (100.1891)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,

[January 24, 1S91.

INFELICITOUS QUOTATIONS.

Bcstess. ""Won't you try some of that Jelly, Herr Stlbebmund ?"

Herr Silbermund (who has just been helped to Pudding). "Ach, zank yotj, no. I voot ' rahzer pear viz ze ills ve haf, zan
y l.y to ozzers za.t ye know not of.'" [Herr S. is particularly proud of his knowledge of Shakspearc.

" WORSE THAN EYER ! "

Farmer Smith loquitur .• —

" To market, to market, to buy a fat pig! "

Yes, so runs the old-fashioned nursery rhyme,
And a porker that's plump, and round-barrel'd and big,

Is good business,—or used to be once on a time.
But now, they 're the horriblest nuisance on earth
Are Pigs, and a great deal more plague than they 're worth.

I begin to believe 'twould be better by far

If Pigs, like the Dodo, extinct could become.
They involve one in nothing but jangle and jar,

And as to large profits, why that's all a hum.
" Please the Pigs ? " That's absurd, a mere obsolete wheeze,
For Pigs are precisely the beasts you can'i please !

Gee up, Dobbin, old lad! Home's in sight; you have borne

My burden, and that of my basket, right well,
Your carrying power some neighbours would scorn,

But you 're sound and good grit, though you mayn't look a swell.
We 're starting, lad, after our short half-way halt,

we don't make good time it will not be our fault.

"We did the first stretch unexpectedly slick,
My basket well loaded a feather-weight seemed,

The road was so smooth, and your oanter so quick,
'Twas better, old lad, than we either had dreamed.

A great disappointment to some folk, I think.

Then we halted half-way for a rest and a drink.

That big Irish Pig, which had plagued us so oft,

"Was away,—running after its head or its tail!
Oh joy, Dobbin, dear, to jog on, and go soft,

No row, no obstruction by hedge-gap or rail.
Ah, then they discovered the paoe and the pith
Of Dobbin the dull, and his mount, Farmer Smith.

Now all seems smooth sailing ! Hillo ! "What was that ?
A squeak P Nay, it sounds like a chorus of squeaks !

Don't shy, my dear Dobbin—you'll shake off my hat.

The lane here grows narrow. Who's there ? No one speaks.
But that raucous " hrumph ! hrumph ! " that cacophonous yell!
'Tis Pig-noise, and Irish—I know it so well.

It is right in the road, it is plump in the gap.

Steady, Dobbin ! Don't halt for this hullaballoo—
Gee up ! and go steady, now there's a good chap.

What, the same plaguy Pig ! Nay, by Jove, there are two !
And they're fightiDg eich other, these porkers perverse,
In the gap we must pass ! Oh ! this grows worse and worse I

[ Whips up Dolbin.

KOCH SURE!

Scene—A Place of Meeting. Enter Brown and Jones. They

salute one another.
Brown (excitedly). Have you heard the good news ?
Jones {stolid'y). What good news ?

Brown. That Dr. Koch has at length revealed his secret ?

Jones {startled). No, has he ! Dear me ! And that I should have
missed so pleasant a piece of intelligence ! And so he has told an
anxiously-expectant world the cause of his success I Can you explain
the matter to me f

Brown (cheerfully). With the assistance of the Public Press, to be
sure I can. See here, I will give you the solution to the problem, as
told by the Journals, 41 without puzzling technicalities."

Jones. I hang upon your words with an impatience that politeness
—the outcome of civilisation—alone renders endurable.

Brown. Then you must know that Dr. Koch has discovered that
the remedy for tuberculosis consists of a glycerine extract of a pure
cultivation of tubercle bacilli, the local effect of which, when
injected into a healthy guinea-pig, produces a nodule found at the
point of inoculation, which, when a second puncture is perpetrated,
causes what may be called the baciliary fluid to be brought into the
current of its circulation, so that the infected tissue may react upon
the agent which it had previously been able to resist. I am not
quite sure that I have got the exact words, but that's the idea.
Simple, isn't it? Jones. Very I [Exeunt severally.