_Edith._ "Oh, I'm writing letters, and we're in the Engadine, you know, and I just want to describe some of our favourite haunts, and mention a few of the people who are staying there--here, I mean." * * * * * [Illustration: SCENT BEES] * * * * * THE LAY OF THE LAST LODGER [Illustration] I. Oh dreary, dreary, dreary me! My jaw is sore with yawning-- I'm weary of the dreary sea, With its roaring beach Where sea-gulls screech, And shrimpers shrimp, And limpets limp, And winkles wink, And trousers shrink; And the groaning, moaning, droning tide Goes splashing and dashing from side to side, With all its might, from morn to night, And from night to morning's dawning. II. The shore's a flood of puddly mud, And the rocks are limy and slimy-- And I've tumbled down with a thud--good lud!-- And I fear I swore, For something tore; And my shoes are full Of the stagnant pool; And hauling, sprawling, crawling crabs Have got in my socks with star-fish and dabs; And my pockets are swarming with polypes and prawns, And noisome beasts with shells and horns, That scrunch and scrape, and goggle and gape, Are up my sleeve, I firmly believe-- And I'm horribly rimy and grimy. III. I'm sick of the strand, and the sand, and the band, And the niggers and jiggers and dodgers; And the cigars of rather doubtful brand; And my landlady's "rights", And the frequent fights On wretched points Of ends of joints, Which disappear, with my brandy and beer, In a way that, to say the least, is queer. And to mingle among the throng I long, And to poke my joke and warble my song-- But there's no one near On sands or pier, For everyone's gone and I'm left alone, The Last of the Seaside Lodgers! * * * * * [Illustration: FILEY] * * * * * NOTE BY OUR MAN OUT OF TOWN--Watering places--resorts where the visitor is pumped dry. * * * * * [Illustration: A STARTLING PROPOSITION _Seedy Individual_ (_suddenly and with startling vigour_)-- "Aoh! Floy with me ercross ther sea, Ercross ther dork lergoon!!" ] * * * * * [Illustration: CROWDED STATE OF LODGING HOUSES _Lodging-House Keeper._ "On'y this room to let, mem. A four-post--a tent--and a very comfortable double-bedded chest of drawers for the young gentlemen."] * * * * * A WET DAY AT THE SEASIDE Why does not some benefactor to his species discover and publish to a grateful world some rational way of spending a wet day at the seaside? Why should it be something so unutterably miserable and depressing that its mere recollection afterwards makes one shudder?