Punch (102.1892)

February 20, 1892.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

89

Podb. Whew, old chap ! I say, I wouldn't be you for something-!
Won't you catch it when you do turn up ? But look here—as things
are, we may as well travel home together, eh P

Culch. [with a flicker of resentment). In spite of my tendency to
"jaw" and "jabber " ?

Podb. Oh, never mind all that now. We 're companions in mis-
fortune, you know, and we'd better stick together, and keep each
other's spirits Tip. After all, you 're in a much worse hat than
Jam!

Culch. If that's the way you propose to keep my spirits up!

■- But let us keep together, by all means, if you wish it,

and just go and find out when the next train starts, will you ? (To
himself, as Podbury departs.) I must put up with him a little
longer, I suppose. Ah me! How differently I should be feeling
now, if Hypatia had only been true to herself. But that's all over,
and I daresay it's better so . . , I daresay!

[He strolls into the hotel-garden, and begins to read his Chief's

missive once more, in the hope of deciphering some faint

encouragement between the lines.

finis.

A TENNYSONIAN FRAGMENT.

So in the village inn
the Poet dwelt.
His honey - dew was
gone ; only the pouch,
His cousin's work, her
empty labour, left.
But still he sniffed it,
still a fragrance clung
And lingered all about
the broidered flowers.
Then came his land-
lord, saying in broad
Scotch,

"Smoke plug, mon,"
whom he looked at
doubtfully,
came the grocer, saying,
'' Hae some twist
At tippence," whom he answered

with a qualm.
But when they left him to himself
again,

Twist, like a fiend's breath from a

distant room
Diffusing through the passage,

crept; the smell
Deepening had power upon him,

and he mixt
His fancies with the billow-lifted
bay

Of Biscay, and the rollings of a
ship.

And on that night he made a little song,

And called his song '' The Song of Ttvist and Plug,"

And sang it: scarcely could he make or sing.

'' Rank is black plug, though smoked in wind and rain;
And rank is twist, which gives no end of pain;
I know not which is ranker, no, not I.

'' Plug, art thou rank ? Then milder twist must be ;
Plug, thou art milder ; rank is twist to me,

0 Twist, if plug be milder, let me buy.

" Bank twist, that seems to make me fade away,
Rank plug, that navvies smoke in loveless clay,

1 know not which is ranker, no, not I.

" I fain would purchase flake, if that could be ;
I needs must purchase plug, ah woe is me !
Plug and a cutty, a cutty, let me buy."

Complicated Case.—The other day, an Italian Organ-grinder was
arrested for having shot one GiuseppePia. "He admitted the
charge" (we quote the Globe), "but said the gun went off acci-
dentally." When a Gentleman " admits the charge " (though indeed
it was the other one who did that), how the gun went off seems to
be a matter of secondary importance.

A LATTERDAY VALENTINE.

(Leap Year : New Style. )
(From Miss Anastasia Jay, New York, to Thomas, Earl of Dunlrowne,

Valentines plebeian

Cannot fix an Earl—
I'm as you may see, an

Ardent Yankee girl.
Nothing "soft" you'll find
here,

No old-fashioned lay;
Say then, you '11 be mine, dear,
In the modern way.

You (we haven't met as

Yet I must record)
Figure in Debrett as

Out-and-out a Lord:
Ancestors, a thousand,

Dignities, a score—
Hear my bashful vows,
and

Think this matter o'er.

I don't in for Pa go ;

Pa despised New York ;
Porpa in Chicago

Cultivated pork:
Ma was born a Gerald;

Birth was Morma's
pride—
As the New York Herald

Mentioned when she died.

Well, my pile's a million,

That's a fact, you bet:
I'm in our cotillon

Quite the Broadway Pet:
I can sing like Patti ;

And to win I went
For the Cincinnati

Tennis Tournament.

I've a lovely right hand;

For my face I've sat
By electric light—and

Elegant at that!
I enclose the photo,

Just for you to see,
But deny in toto

That it flatters me.

London.)

But their disappearance
Beats me to explain.

Thomas, I adore thee !—
" Thomas " is thy name,

Isn't it ?—the more the
Scandal and the shame !

All I ask you, Tom, is
Just one loving line,

You, I've read, are rather
"Up the Spout" for
cash,

Owing to your father

Having been so splash :
J from debt could free you, One type-written promise

And in Politics
Calculate to see you _
Bagging all the tricks.

Any Earl who marries

Anastasia Jay
Will (except in Paris)

Get his little way,
Fear no interference;

Relatives remain,—

Publishing you mine.

Matrimony's heart is

Houselike, "half-detached,"
Seldom save at parties

Or in papers matched-
Answer " Yes," or break '11

This poor heart of mine.
Be my Fin-de-Siecle,

Be my Valentine!

The Name and the Thing.—A vote of thanks to Sir Charles
Russell, after his address to the Liberal and Radical Association,
was carried by a Wapping Majority.

Query by a Depressed Convalescent.—" This Influenza is
nothing new, nor is the Microbe. Wasn't Microbius an ancient
classic writer ? Didn't he treat this subject historically ? There's
evidently some confusion of ideas somewhere. As Hamlet says :—

1 0, cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right.'

But I beg pardon, that 'set it right' shows that Hamlet was a
Surgeon, not a Physician. Excuse me. 'To bed! To bed !' "

Sad Thought in my own Library.—I am a stranger among
books. Resting on their shelves, they ail turn their backs on me.
En revanche, if I find among them a new one, a perfect stranger to
me, I cut him.