I wonder if that pair of gloves I won of you you’ll ever pay me! I wonder if our early loves Were wise or foolish, cousin Amy! I wonder if our childish tiff Now seems to you, like me, a blunder! I wonder if you wonder if I ever wonder if you wonder! I wonder if you’d think it bliss Once more to be the fashion’s leader! I wonder if the trick of this Escapes the unsuspecting reader! And as for him who does or can Delight in it, I wonder whether He knows that almost any man Could reel it off by yards together! I wonder if――What’s that? A knock? Is that you, James? Eh? What? God bless me! How time has flown! Its eight o’clock, And here’s my fellow come to dress me. Be quick, or I shall be the guest Whom Lady Mary never pardons; I trust you, James, to do your best To save the soup at Grosvenor-gardens. FRITTERIC LACQUER. _Time_, June, 1880. ――――:o:―――― ON FREDERICK LOCKER. Of Locker what? Apollo in the fashion. Humour and pathos suits, no touch of passion. From Suckling, Lovelace, Prior, Luttrell, Praed, Locker inherits his inspiring Maid: Not nude and passionate, not fast and flighty, Like Swinburne’s rosy-bosomed Aphrodite; Not icy-cold, as Parian sculpture is, Like Tennyson’s blue-stockingéd Artemis: Not erudite and sapient, grimly frowning, Like the Athena that’s adored by Browning: But just the Period’s girl, a pretty creature, Of dainty style, though inexpressive feature, Who carefully reserves her choice opinions For length of petticoats and bulk of chignons, In whom no tragic impulse ever rankles, Who always says her prayers, and shows her ankles. [Illustration] AUSTIN DOBSON. The proverb that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” is somewhat the worse for wear, and perhaps Mr. Austin Dobson was not altogether inclined to agree with it when he heard that the Puzzle Editor of _Truth_ had published the following notification: “TRUTH” PUZZLE, NO. 472. Thanks to the efforts of Messrs. Austin Dobson, Andrew Lang, and others, Triolets, Ballades, Rondeaux, Vilanelles, and other metrical devices used by Villon and other French poets of the past, have been freely adapted to English verse-writing, and I am assured that I shall be setting numerous competitors an agreeable task in asking them to write a rhyming composition on one of the revived French models now so fashionable.