[Illustration: "Ink and flour--couldn't possibly miss him."] _Pill._ Beastly bad form, _I_ call it--with a fellow you don't know. You'll get yourself into trouble some day. And you couldn't even manage your ridiculous booby-trap, for here the beggar comes, as if nothing had happened. _Archie_ (_disconcerted_). Confound him! The best booby-trap I _ever_ made! _The Bishop._ My dear Lady CANTIRE, here is our youthful poet, at the eleventh hour. (_To himself._) "_Sic me servavit_ Apollo!" [Miss SPELWANE _advances to meet_ SPURRELL, _who stands surveying the array of chairs in blank bewilderment._ * * * * * BRITISH LIONS. ["Poor Mrs. LEO HUNTER has fallen on evil days.... It is the lions themselves that are lacking.... We have fallen upon an age of prancing mediocrity."--_The World, October 10._] O dire is our extremity, whose laudable persistence In tracking down celebrities is undiminished still, We're quick enough to mark our prey, we scent him at a distance, But seldom is our watchfulness rewarded by a "kill." There are bears indeed in plenty, there are owls with strident voices, And jackanapes in modern days are seldom hard to find, But the genuine British Lion, in whom our heart rejoices, Seems almost to have vanished from the dwellings of mankind! And even if we find him, after herculean labour, Apart from festive drawing-rooms he resolutely roams, Disgracefully forgetful of his duty to his neighbour He quite declines to dignify our dinners and At Homes. Too often those we ask are unaccountably prevented From hastening, as we wanted them, "to come and join the dance," And so, in these degraded times, we have to be contented With quite inferior persons, mediocrities who "prance." Yes, "prancing mediocrity"--sweet phrase!--no doubt expresses The decadent young poet, with the limp and languid air, The very last pianist with the too-abundant tresses, Whose playing is--well, only less eccentric than his hair. So, _Mr. Punch_, we hostesses regard you with affection, And now that our calamity and trouble you have heard, If any happy circumstance should bring in your direction A _really_ nice young lion--would you kindly send us word? * * * * * NEW NOVEL BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE MANXMAN."--_The Minx-woman._ [_Not yet ready._ * * * * * THE BLUE GARDENIA. (_A Colourable Imitation._)