Elves patter down the subways; they crowd the moving stairs; From purses full of tiddly-winks they pay the clerk their fares; A Brownie checks the tickets and says the proper things: "Come pass along the car there!" "Now, ladies, mind your wings!" They're never dull like mortals who read and dream and doze; The fairies swing head downwards, strap-hanging by their toes; When _Puck_ is the conductor he also acts as host And sets them playing Leapfrog or Coach or General Post. I'd love to travel with them! The sparrow says he thinks I'd get from here to Golder's Green for three red tiddly-winks; Two yellows pay to Euston, four whites to Waterloo; Perhaps I'll go some moonlight night; the question is--will YOU? * * * * * AUTHORSHIP FOR ALL. [Being specimens of the work of Mr. Punch's newly-established Literary Ghost Bureau, which supplies appropriate Press contributions on any subject and over any signature.] II.--THE MIDDLE-CLASS MOTHER. _By Lady Vi Fitzermine, Leader of Society's Revels._ Are we growing dull? That is a question which in these pip-inducing times of peace one is frequently constrained to ask; and in the view of many, I fear, there can be but one answer. During the late lamented War it was almost impossible for any rightly constituted woman to experience the pangs of boredom. When one wasn't making things vibrate in the hospitals of France and Flanders there was always abundance of excitement on the Home Front--flag-days, tableaux, theatricals, dances and other junketings in aid of this or that charity. And when the supply of charities threatened to run dry it was always a simple matter to invent new ones. All you had to do was to organise a drawing-room meeting, put the names of the Allied nations in one hat and of the more or less recognised necessaries of life in another and draw out one paper from each receptacle. You there and then registered a new charity out of the result and advertised some thrillingly expensive form of entertainment in support of the Society for the Supply of Chewing-gum to the Czecho-Slovakians, or any other equally pathetic cause. In those days a charity began at an At Home and usually ended at the Coliseum or the Albert Hall--or (in a few unfortunate cases) in the Bankruptcy Court. Nowadays, however, people are deplorably sceptical on the subject of new appeals to the pocket, and many folk find time hanging heavy on their hands in consequence. It is for us who are of what I may call the organising class to break down the walls of this growing prejudice, which, if not checked in time, threatens to add seriously to the general volume of unrest. Hence it is necessary to scrap a good many of our old ideas and to realise that for all essential purposes the exotic form of charity is played out. To-day a Society woman who wishes to maintain her position as _arbiter elegantiarum_ must tap other sources of inspiration and supply.