Like one who starts upon a race, The Chaplain through the service scurried. From prayer to prayer he sped apace; I marked him less the more he hurried. My prayer-book fell--my neighbour smiled; Reversing NEWTON with the apple, I, by that neighbour's eye beguiled, Quite lost my gravity in chapel. And so we smiled. I see him still, Blue eyes, where darting gleams of fun shine, A smile like some translucent rill That sparkles in the summer sunshine, A manly mien, and unafraid, Crisp hair, fair face, and square-set shoulders, That made him on the King's Parade The cynosure of all beholders. And from this slight irreverence, Too small, I hope, to waste your blame on, We grew, in quite a Cambridge sense, A sort of PYTHIAS and DAMON. Together "kept," together broke Laws framed by elderly Draconians, And I was six, and JACK was stroke, That famous night we bumped the Johnians. How strong he was, how fleet of foot, Ye bull-dogs witness, and ye Proctors; How bright his jests, how aptly put His scorn of duns, and Dons, and Doctors. We laughed at care, read now and then-- Though vexed by EUCLID on the same bridge-- Ah, men in those great days were men When JACK and I wore gowns at Cambridge. We paid our fines, we paid our fees, And, though the Dons seemed stony-hearted, We both got very fair degrees, And then, like other friends, we parted. And when we said good-bye at last I vowed through life to be his brother-- And more than forty years have passed Since each set eyes upon the other. And so through all these changing years With all their thousand changing faces, Their failures, hopes, successes, fears, In half a hundred different places, JACK still has been the same to me, As bright within my memory's fair book As when we met in '43, And smiled about that fallen prayer-book. Ah well, the moments swiftly stream Unheeded through the upturned hour-glass; I've lived my life, and dreamed my dream, And quaffed the sweet, as now the sour glass. But old and spent my mind strays back To pleasant paths fresh-strewn with roses, And I would see my old friend JACK Once more before the curtain closes. * * * * * ANNOUNCEMENT.--The Earl of LATHOM (who, being quite six feet or more, cannot be described as Small and Earl-y) is to lay the foundation-stone of "The Cross Deaf and Dumb School for N. and E. Lancashire." Now the Deaf and Dumb are, as a rule, exceptionally cheerful and good-tempered. It is quite right, therefore, that exceptions to this rule should be treated in a separate establishment, and that the "Cross Deaf and Dumb" ones should have a house to themselves. _Prosit!_ * * * * * A HIGHLY-POLISH'D PERFORMANCE.--HENRY IRVING as _Le Juif Polonais_ in _The Bells._ * * * * *