AT THE END OF THE YEAR. THE FRIEND'S REPLY. I thought your lines a great success, (You always did write rather neatly) Although I must at once confess I can't agree with you completely. Of course I recollect quite well How long we sat and smoked together, And how our conversation fell (As fall it will) upon the weather. Our prospects then seemed bright and fair, (Our language certainly got stronger) We built our castles in the air, And by degrees our drinks grew longer. Yes--in the game of law BEN wins, And many guineas in he's picking, But have you heard his wife has twins, And both of them alive and kicking? And pompous JOE, now JOE, M.P., Is doubtless pleased at growing raucous Through speaking, since he's proud to be The Member for a Tory Caucus. Yet I'm afraid for his poor brain, That such success will surely turn it, For every speech means so much strain, Since off by heart he has to learn it! And mazy JACK, whose chance in life, We all of us considered shady, _Has_ married money (_and_ a wife); But tell me--do you know the lady? DICK's dinners, too, I'm quite aware, Are noted--yet he's far from steady, Whilst TOM's fine house in Belgrave Square Is mortgaged, so they say, already. Life, after all, is surely more Than guineas, Belgrave Square, or dinners. Life is a race--but yet, before You curse your luck, _are_ these the winners? * * * * * And so, old friend, content I jog Along, amidst life's hurry-skurry, And smoke my bird's-eye, sip my grog, Without a care or thought to worry. * * * * * VOCES POPULI. ON THE ICE. SCENE--_The Serpentine. On the bank, several persons are having their skates put on; practised Skaters being irritable and impatient, and others curiously the reverse, at any delay in the operation_. _Chorus of Unemployed Skate-Fasteners_. 'Oo'll 'ave a pair on for an hour? Good Sport to-day, Sir! Try a pair on, Mum! (_to any particularly stout Lady_). Will yer walk inter _my_ porler, Sir? corpet all the w'y! 'Ad the pleasure o' puttin' on your skites last year, Miss! Best skates in London, Sir! [_Exhibiting a primæval pair._ _The Usual Comic Cockney_ (_to his Friend, who has undertaken to instruct him_). No _'urry_, old man--this joker ain't _'arf_ finished with me yet! [_To Skate-Fastener._] Easy with that jimlet, Guv'nor. My 'eel ain't 'orn, like a 'orse's 'oof! If you're goin' to strap me up as toight as all that, I shell 'ave to go to _bed_ in them skites!... Well, what is it _now_? [Illustration: "Look here! This is rather a pretty figure."] _Skate-Fastener_. Reglar thing fur Gen'lm'n as 'ires skates ter leave somethink be'ind, jest as security like--_anythink_'ll do--a gold watch and chain, if yer got sech a thing about yer! _The C.C._ Oh, I dessay--not _me_!