Ping-pong departed, to be revived in 1920, but another and equally devastating craze ran its course in 1907, when "Diabolo"--the old "Devil-on-two-sticks"--was the ruling passion of the hour. It was honoured with a cartoon showing John Redmond playing the "Divil of a Game," the reel being "Leadership," and numerous illustrations are devoted to the progress of the mania. _Punch_ affected to have discovered a new disease, "Diabolo Neck," which he compares and contrasts with "the Cheek of the Devil," and records the observation of an ill-tempered old gentleman, as he watched some performers "diabolizing" in Kensington Gardens: "A month or so ago that sort of thing was only being done in our Asylums." [Illustration: FIRST THRUSTER (guiltily conscious of having rather pressed on hounds): "Now we're goin' to catch it; that's the master comin', isn't it?" SECOND THRUSTER (his host): "It's all right. We've got two masters. That's the one that supplies the money; the other supplies the language."] The vogue of Bridge dates from the last years of the old century. According to the veracious _Daily Mail_, in 1899 a Cambridge Professor was earning handsome fees by giving instruction in the game to members of the University, and _Punch_ embroiders the text according to his wont. In 1901 _Punch's_ cartoon "Discarded" shows Fashion, in her fool's cap, accosting "Mr. Bridge": "Come along, Partner! That dear old Mister Whist is such a bore! He is so _vieux jeu_!" Bridge figures as a gallant and picturesque cavalier, while Whist is a sour-visaged old pedant. _Punch_ was not always of one mind about the triumphant new-comer, but he cordially echoed the sentiments of the _Morning Post_ when that journal asserted that Bridge made for the abolition of the drawing-room ballad and the drawing-room ballad-monger; and it gave him abundant scope for comment and parody, e.g. his perversion of Longfellow's lines into "I played on at Bridge at midnight." Bridge, however, had not always a monopoly of attraction even in the days when its tyranny was at its height. In 1902 we encounter the tragedy of the four men driven to the nursery to play Bridge because "they are playing Ping-Pong in the dining-room, and 'Fives' in the billiard-room, Jack's trying to imitate Dan Leno in the drawing-room, Dick's got that infernal gramophone of his going in the hall, and they are laying supper in the smoking-room." [Sidenote: _Hunting and Prize-fighting_]