* * * * * [Illustration: A NEW DISH _Sympathising Swell_ (_waiting for some chicken_). "You've got no sinecure there, Thomas!" _Perspiring Footman._ "Very sorry, sir--just 'elped the last of it away, sir!"] * * * * * [Illustration: ALARMING SYMPTOMS AFTER EATING BOILED BEEF AND GOOSEBERRY PIE _Little Boy._ "Oh, lor, mar, I feel just exactly as if my jacket was buttoned."] * * * * * [Illustration: BROWN AND JONES OVER THEIR WINE _Jones._ "How would I take Cronstadt? With vigour and decision, nothing more easy. My dear Brown, look here. This table is the Baltic, very well. Now look--(_Jones places certain strawberries for the forts; the city of Cronstadt on this occasion only being represented by a plate of gooseberries at the back._) Here we are. The strawberries the forts: Cronstadt the gooseberries. Now a little vigour and decision! This spoon is the _Duke of Wellington_, three-decker, leading the van. We go in here, firing both broadsides at once, to destroy the forts to larboard and starboard; while at the same time our guns in the bows and stern-sheets smash the other forts before and behind. Very good. We are then in front of Cronstadt--the city of Cronstadt. We shell that, sir; shell it of course! Blow up the powder-magazines; capitulation ensues; the Russian fleet is in a blaze, and, my dear Brown, that is how _I_ would take Cronstadt----" _Brown._ "----After dinner."] * * * * * [Illustration: HEAVY _Stranger_ (_just arrived at the City of Eastminster_). "What can I have for dinner, waiter?" _Waiter._ "Anything you please, sir!" _Stranger._ "What are you celebrated for here?" _Waiter._ "Well, sir, there's the cathedral----!!"] * * * * * [Illustration: HORRIBLE SUSPICION _Old Gentleman._ "Oh, waiter, why is it that a dinner off the joint is five shillings, but if you only have made dishes and soup, it's two shillings and sixpence?" _Waiter._ "That, sir, is on account of the very high price of butcher's meat just now, sir."] * * * * * [Illustration: SELF-EXAMINATION _Party_ (_slightly influenced_). "Queshion ish! Am I fit to go intodrawingroom? Letsh shee!--I can shay gloriush conshyshusn!--Have seen Brish inshychusion--all that shortothing--thatledo--here gosh!"] * * * * * [Illustration: DURING THE CATTLE SHOW.--_Old Farmer Wuzzle_ (_reading the bill of fare_). "Dinners har lar cart! What does that mean, Polly?" _Miss Wuzzle_ (_who has been to a fashionable boarding-school to be finished, who has been taught French and how "to spank the grand pianner" and who is never at a loss_). "Aller cart, father? Why, that means a small, simple dinner. If you want something heavy and first-rate, you order what they call a dinner waggon!"] * * * * *