Punch (103.1892)

90

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 27, 1892,

AN EARNEST POLITICIAN.

"I'm very glad Sir Percy Plantagenet was returned, Miss ! "
"Why,—are you a Primrose Dame?"
"No, Miss,—but my 'Usband is ! "

TIP TO TAX-COLLECTORS.

{After HerricJc's " Counsel to Girls.")
A Soxo op the Exchequer.
Air—" Gather ye rose-buds ivhile ye may.''''

Gather ye Taxes while ye may,

The time is fleetly flying';
And tenants who'd stump up to-day,

To-morrow may be shying-.

That annual "Lump," the Income Tax,
Still higher aye seems getting ;

The sooner that for it you "ax,"
The nearer you '11 be netting.

That payer's best who payeth first
The Exchequer's pert purse-stormer :

As the year wags still worse and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not lax, but keep your time,
And dun, and press, and harry;

Tax-payers shirk, nor deem it crime,
If long Collectors tarry.

" "Where Shall we Go ?" is of course an
important subject in the holiday-time, and
one to which Said's Journal devotes a column
or two weekly; but a still more important
one is " How shall we go it?" and having
totted up the items there comes the final
question, "Where shall we stay?" And
the wise, but seldom-given answer is—
" At Home" In any case, the traveller's
motto should always be, "Wherever you go,
make: yourself quite at Home"—and stay
there, may be added by the London Club
Cynic, who wants everything all to himself.

THE LOST JOKE.

[A Song of a Sad but Common JExperienee.)
Air :—" The Lost Chord."

Seated one day in my study

I was listless and ill at ease,
And my fingers twiddled idly

With the novel upon my knees.
I know not where I was straying

On the poppy-clustered shore,
But I suddenly struck on a Sparkler

"Which fairly made me roar.

I have joked some jokes in my time, Sir,

But this was a Champion Joke,
And it fairly cut all record

As a humoristic stroke.
It was good for a dozen of dinners,

It was fit to crown my fame
As a shaper of sheer Side-splitters,

For which I have such a name.

It flooded my spirit's twilight

Like the dawn on a dim dark lake,
For I knew that against all rivals

It would fairly "take the cake. '
I said I will try it to-morrow,—

I won't even tell my wife,—
It will certainly fetch Lord Ftjmfudte,

And then—I am made for life !

It links two most distant meanings

Into one perfect chime-

*****

Here my servant broke the silence,
And said it was dinner-time I

'fr ^ -fr ^

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,

That great Lost Joke of mine,
Which had slipped from my mind en-
tirely

"When I sat me down to dine.
It may be that something some day
May bring it me back again ;

But I only wish—confound it!—
I had fixed it with pencil or pen.

It may be that luck—bright Angel!—
May inspire me once more with that
stroke,

But I fear me 'tis only in Limbo
I shall light on my great Lost Joke!

Mrs. R., who has been busy with her
juniors, tells us that she has been horrified
to learn from her Nephew, who has been
fighting the Slave-hunters on the Congo,
that in that country they "preserve" the
bodies of their enemies. He writes to her—
" I have 'potted' several Arabs."