[Illustration: _Little Tompkins._ "That fellow Brown tried to stuff me up with some of his travellers' tales the other day. Talked about his trip to Italy, and the waving fields of macaroni, but he didn't catch me, you know. They _don't_ wave!"] * * * * * [Illustration: GUILE. _Old Lady._ "You know the 'Royal Oak'? Well, you turn to the right, past the 'Jolly Gardener,' till you come to the 'Red Lion'----" _Artful Cabby._ "O, don't tell me the 'ouses, mum! Name some o' the churches, and then I shall know where I am!!" [_Asks, and gets, an exorbitant fare without a murmur._ ] * * * * * RUS IN URBE (_A Cockney Rhapsody_) As I stroll through Piccadilly, Scent of blossoms borne from Scilly Greet me. Jonquil, rose, and lily, Violet and daffydowndilly. Oh, the feeling sweet and thrilly That these blossoms flounced and frilly From soft plains and headlands hilly Bring my breast in Piccadilly! It subdues me, willy nilly, Though such sentiment seems silly, And a bunch, dear, buys your Willy, To dispatch, by post, to Milly, Dwelling, far from Piccadilly, In moist lowlands, rushed and rilly, Blossomy as Penzance or Scilly. Sweets to the sweet! "Poor Silly-Billy!" You may say in accents trilly. When the postman in the stilly Eve, from distant Piccadilly, Bears this box of rose and lily, Violet and daffodilly, To the rural maiden, Milly, From her urban lover, Willy. P.S.-- Dry as toke and skilly, Is this arid Piccadilly, Notwithstanding rose and lily, All the beauteous blooms of Scilly, Reft of that flower of flowers--Milly. So, at least, thinks "Silly Billy." * * * * * A COCKNEY'S EXCLAMATION UPON SEEING THE CELEBRATED HEIDELBERG TON.--"Well, it is (s)ton-ning!" * * * * * [Illustration: NATURAL HISTORY NOTES _Country Cousin._ "Lor, Bill, ain't that a horstrich?" _Bill._ "_Horstrich?_ 'Corse not. That 'ere's a _mongoose_!"] * * * * * SHAKESPEARE ON BLACKHEATH I saw young 'Arry with his billycock on, Checked trousers on his thighs, with knob stick armed, Climb from the ground like fat pig up a pole, And flop with such sore toil into his saddle, As though a bran-bag dropped down from the clouds, To turn and wind a slow "Jerusalem," And shock the world with clumsy assmanship. * * * * * 'ARRY'S LATEST CONUNDRUM.--Why is a title-page like charity?--Becos it always begins a tome. (Begins at 'ome, don'tcher see!) * * * * * [Illustration: _Cockney Friend._ "Good 'evins! there's a pheasant!" _Country Friend._ "Well, what of it?" _Cockney._ "Why, it ain't the fust of Hoctober?"] * * * * *