But they offer you tea, made with unboiling water, A syrupy Souchong at tenpence a pound, Which a simpering, woebegone, elderly daughter, With stale bread rancid buttered, is handing around. And you think you'll be off: as your talk halts and flounders, For you feel most distinctly, _they're not in your line_, And you say to yourself, "Yes, these JOHNSONS _are_ bounders," But before you can go, _you have promised to dine_! That same dinner will take you some seasons forgetting! The claret was sour, the "tinned" oysters, Blue Point; And moreover 'tis really a little upsetting, For the cook to come up very drunk with the joint! And when to crown this you are asked to expel her, And find a Policeman,--that is, if you could. It may soothe you to hear yourself called "a good feller," But can you admit that the dinner was good? And so when you meet JOHNSON going up to the City, It somehow to-day does not strike you as odd, That with feelings of scorn not unmingled with pity, You hurry on fast with a stiff little nod. Be his craze "speculation," "a crush," "a small dinner," A christening, marriage, a death or a birth,-- There's a limpness of purpose that shows, though no sinner. Why the dim "One-horse" Householder cumbers the earth! * * * * * [Illustration: A LIVELY PROSPECT. _Jones (who has come, for the first time, to spend a week at Prigglesly Manor)._ "SMITH, OF BALLIOL, WAS HERE; WASN'T HE, MRS. PRIGGLESLY?" _Mrs. Prigglesly._ "YES; FOR A WEEK. HE'S JUST LEFT. HE WAS QUITE NICE. BUT I ASSURE YOU I DON'T FEEL A BIT THE _WISER_ OR THE _BETTER_ FOR ANY SINGLE THING HE SAID THE WHOLE TIME!" [_Jones wishes himself anywhere else._] * * * * * MAKING THEM USEFUL. See in the papers that school-children at Whissendine and elsewhere are taught gardening. Excellent idea, this. Small Holdings for Small Boys! Decide to try it at my "Select Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen," as kitchen garden certainly _does_ want attending to, and I can't afford a gardener. Tell the boys about it. They want to know if the hour a day which I purpose to devote to Agriculture is to take the place of _Bradley's Latin Exercises_. On hearing that it is, boys seem relieved, and SMITH JUNIOR pronounces the scheme a "jolly lark." I confess I am pleased to find this appreciation of my new arrangement on the part of the most troublesome urchin in the school.