Punch: Punch (103.1892)

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150 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 1, 1892.

BREAKING THE ICE.

Scene—Public Drawing-room of Hotel in the Engadine.

The Hon. Mrs. Snolbington (to Fair Stranger). "English People are so unsociable, and never speak to each other without
an Introduction. I always make a point of being friendly with People staying at the same Hotel. One need never
know them afterwards ! "

ADVANCING YEARS.

(How it strikes a Contemporary.)

[" Owing to advancing years, Mr.-has been

compelled to resign his position as-" Extract

from any Daily Paper,.]

Advancing years ! It cannot be.

What, Jack, the boy I've known—God
Why yes, it was in '43 [bless me !

That first we met, and—since you press
That's close on fifty years ago ; [me—

The time has sped without my knowledge,
Like some deep river's silent flow,
Since Jack and I first met at College.

'Twas on a cloudy Autumn day.

Fast fading into misty twilignt;
The freshmen, as they trooped to pray,

Stepped bolder in the evening's shy light.
As yet we did not break the rules

In which the College deans immesh men,
We fledglings from a score of schools,

That far October's brood of freshmen.

Like one who starts upon a race,

The Chaplain through the service scurried.
From prayer to prayer he sped apace ;

I marked him less the more he hurried,
My prayer-book fell—my neighbour smiled ;

Reversing Newton with the apple,
I, by that neighbour's eye beguiled,

Quite lost my gravity in chapel.

And so we smiled. I see him still,
Blue eyes, where darting gleams of fun
shine,

A smile like some translucent rill
That sparkles in the summer sunshine,

A manly mien, and unafraid,
Crisp hair, fair face, and square-set
shoulders,

That made him on the King's Parade
The cynosure of all beholders.

And from this slight irreverence,

Too small, I hope, to waste your blame on,
We grew, in quite a Cambridge sense,

A sort of Pythias and Damon.
Together " kept," together broke

Laws framed by elderly Draconians,
And I was six, and Jack was stroke,

That famous night we bumped the
Johnians.

How strong he was, how fleet of foot,
Ye bull-dogs witness, and ye Proctors ;

How bright his jests, how aptly put
His scorn of duns, and Dons, and Doctors.

We laughed at care, read now and then—
Though vexed by Euclid on the same
bridge—

Ah, men in those great days were men
When Jack andI wore gowns at Cambridge.

We paid our fines, we paid our fees,

And, thoughthe Dons seemed stony-hearted,
We both got very fair degrees,

And then, like other friends, we parted.
And when we said good-bye at last

I vowed through life to be his brother—
And more than forty years have passed

Since each set eyes upon the other.

And so through all these changing years

With all their thousand changing faces,
Their failures, hopes, successes, fears,

In half a hundred different places,
Jack still has been the same to me,

As bright within my memory's fair book
As when we met in '43,

And smiled about that fallen prayer-book.

Ah well, the moments swiftly stream
Unheeded through the upturned hour-
glass ;

I've lived my life, and dreamed my dream,
And quaffed the sweet, as nowthe sour glass.

But old and spent my mind strays back
To pleasant paths fresh-strewn with roses,

And I would see my old friend Jack
Once more before the curtain closes.

Announcement. — The Earl of Lathom
(who, being quite six feet or more, cannot be
described as Small and Earl-y) is to lay the
foundation-stone of "The Cross Deaf and
Dumb School for N. and E. Lancashire."
Now the Deaf and Dumb are, as a rule,
exceptionally cheerful and good-tempered.
It is quite right, therefore, that exceptions
to this rule should be treated in a separate
establishment, and that the " Cross Deaf and
Dumb" ones should have a house to them-
selves. Prosit!

A Highly-Polish'd _ Performance. —
Henry Irving as Le Juif Polonais in The
Bells.