Reft of your master, little dog forlorn, To one dear mistress you shall now be sworn, And in her queenly service you shall dwell, At rest with one who loved your master well. And she, that gentle lady, shall control The faithful Kingdom of a true dog's soul, And for the past's dear sake shall still defend Cæsar, the dead King's humble little friend. Evidence of the unabated popularity of King Alfonso continue to appear in 1910, when that sovereign's visit to the Duke of Westminster prompted some frivolous rhymes on "the Merry Monarch":-- Oh, why does Eaton all her banners don so? To feast the roving eyes of King Alfonso. Why was it that the sun last Wednesday shone so? It loved the polo feats of King Alfonso. What spectacle delights the footman John so? The riding-breeches worn by King Alfonso. What is it fascinates the Eatonian bonne so? It is the winning ways of King Alfonso. What puffs the plumage of the ducal swans so? The notice they receive from King Alfonso. Why are the Kaiser's courtiers jumped upon so? He's sick with jealousy of King Alfonso. Why does the British Press keep on and on so? It cannot have enough of King Alfonso. [Sidenote: _Kaiser, King, and Laureate_] The mention of the Kaiser is ominous. _Punch_ had, for reasons mentioned above, given him a brief respite, but one of his periodical outbursts at Königsberg in August, 1910, provoked a cartoon representing the Imperial Eagle re-entering his cage "Constitution" to the relief of his keeper, whom he reassures with the remark: "It's all right: I'm going back of my own accord. But (_aside_) I got pretty near the sky that time. Haven't had such a day out for two years." This was not exactly respectful treatment, but it was not so frank as _Punch's_ heading "Thank Goodness!" prefixed ten years earlier to the statement made, by an American paper, that in a Boston Lunatic Asylum there were eleven patients, each of whom believed himself to be the German Emperor, but that they had no means of communicating with the outer world. King George's coronation in 1911 gave _Punch_ another occasion for mingling jest with earnest, loyalty to the Sovereign with chaff of notorieties. The King's serious concern with his country's welfare had already been illustrated in the cartoon in which he is seen, like his namesake saint, attacking a dragon--that of "Apathy." At the time of the coronation _Punch_ lays stress on the heritage of sea-power that had fallen to him, a sailor prince. In July the Prince of Wales was welcomed in his Principality--this time, in _Punch's_ picture, by a dragon the reverse of apathetic.