_Old Gent_ (_pulling up, not fancying the timber_). "CONFOUND IT ALL! SURELY ONE OF 'EM 'LL MANAGE TO BREAK THE TOP RAIL."] * * * * * THE TWO SOLDIERS' TEARS. (_Some way after Thomas Haynes Bayly's "Soldier's Tear."_) When at the porch he turned, To take a last fond look. (Human emotion will have way In TOMMY or in Duke.) He listened to the tramp, So familiar to his ear; And the soldier gripped his good old sword, And wiped away a tear. Not far from that same porch A Tommy stood at ease, But, as he saw, his head braced up, And he stiffened at the knees. "Sorry to lose you, Sir! You've been _our_ friend, and dear!" That TOMMY cried, and with his cuff, _He_ wiped away a tear. Both turned, and left the spot, Oh! do not deem them weak, For dauntless was each soldier's heart, Though a tear bedewed each cheek. As _Punch_ gives hearty thanks, At the close of a long career, To the gallant Duke, _he_ also turns, And--wipes away a tear! * * * * * Seasonable Dialogue. _First Dissatisfied Sportsman._ What do you think of the present season, so far? _Second Dis. Sport._ (_with a terrific "cold id 'is dose"_). Der preselt seasult? You mead der cubbig season. _First Dis. Sport._ (_correcting him_). Well, the present season _is_ the "cubbing season." * * * * * A YELL FROM THE YELLOW. The "Yellow Dwarf" (in the _Yellow Book_), in an almost incoherent scream against the literary ladies and gentlemen of the day, wails as follows:-- "The bagman and the stockbroker's clerk (and their lady wives and daughters) 'ave usurped his (the 'gentleman and scholar''s) plyce, and his influence on readers; and the pressman has picked up his fallen pen--the pressman, Sir, or the press-woman!... With an illiterate reading mob howling at our doors, and a tribe of pressmen scribbling at our tables, what, in the name of the universe, can we expect? What we get; not so?" Well, "what we get" is (among other things) the above shriek of the "Yellow Dwarf," who seems to do his full share of the "howling" he attributes to the "reading mob," and who, indeed, might be better described as the "_Yeller_ Dwarf." * * * * * On a Sympathetic Actress. AIR--"_The Widow Malone._" To the Garrick Theayter you'll roam, You'll roam, Where MARION TERRY'S at home, At home. She melts all the hearts Of the swains in such parts As she plays in a play by JEROME, JEROME. Not much of a play by JEROME. * * * * * Why should "All Souls," Oxford, be always a distinguished college? Because it could not be "all souls" without "somebodies" in it. * * * * * BENN AND JIM. _A Pathetic_ (_L. C. C._) _Ballad._