_Our Artist_. "JUST LOOK, DARLING! I WAS SHORT OF CANVASSES, SO I'VE STRETCHED A CLEAN POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF!--SEE HOW SPLENDIDLY IT TAKES THE PAINT!" _His Prudent Little Wife._. "OH, JOHN DEAR, HOW EXTRAVAGANT OF YOU! _IT'LL NEVER COME OUT!_"] * * * * * THE ADOPTED CHILD. "Last year the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER frittered away his resources in a number of small remissions, for which hardly anyone was grateful. This year he squanders the greater part of his surplus in providing for Free, or--as the phrase is--Assisted Education--an innovation for which there is hardly any genuine demand, and which a very large class of the community, including many of the most loyal supporters of the Government, view with rooted distrust."--_The Standard_. MRS. GAMP (_the "Old Regular_") _loquitur_:-- "More changes, too, to come afore we have done with changes!" Ah! I said that to good Mister MOULD years agone; which 'ow memory ranges All over them dear "Good Old Times," as I wish them wos back agen, bless 'em! Which the new ones ain't much to _my_ mind; there's too many fresh "monthlies" to mess 'em. No; monthlying ain't wot it were; the perfession's too open, a lump. Nusses now ain't no more like old SAIREY, no not than the old Aldgit Pump. Like the Cristial Palluses fountings; A Pilgjian's Projiss is life, And a Nuss ain't no more _like_ a Nuss than a Wife now resembles a Wife. Heigho! Which it's no use a frettin'. But _Fondlings_! Ah, well, I _did_ think Our respectable fam'lies, _though_ mixed, from sich ojus demeaning would shrink, Which no greater hinsult to _me_, the old reglar, could well be deviged; And though I've to live and to learn, I confess as this turn I'm serpriged. A Fondling!!! Turned up unbeknownst on a doorstep permiskus, no doubt. And then to _adopt_ him! Oh dear, wot the plague is our Party about? Wich to monthly to _it_ were my pride; its legitermit offspring I've nussed Many years with the greatest success, but to-day I feels flurried and fussed, And my eyes is Saint Polge's fontin with tears, and this brat is their source; As it isn't no offspring of _ourn_--of the fam'ly I mean, Ma'am, in course; But a Brummagem bantling, picked hup, as were not worth its swaddlin' and food, And I never yet knowed any brat from _that_ source as turned out any good. Missis G., Mum, it's all a mistake, as you know in your 'art all the same, For you turned up your nose at the child when JOE CHAMBERLING give him a name, Afore we was thick with his set, when you snubbed him, and laughed him to scorn, And heaped naughty names on this kid, as you swore was his nat'ral fust-born. And now you come dandling, and doddling, and patting the brat on the 'ed, And forgetting the things as you promiged, and backing on all as you said.