_Miss C._ Rather in-and-out-running, isn't it? (_Cries of distress from the rear._) But what is the matter now? That poor dear Curate again! _The Curate_ (_in agony_). Here, I say, somebody! _do_ help me! Miss STELLA, do speak to your monkey, please! It's jumped on my back, and it's pulling my hair--'ow! [_Most of the Competitors abandon their animals and rush to the rescue._ _Dick Gatling_ (_coming up later_). Why on earth did you all jack up like that? You've missed a splendid finish! My Mutton was forging ahead like fun, when FANSHAWE's Peacock hoisted his sail, and drew alongside, and it was neck and neck. Only, as he had more neck than the Mutton, and stuck it out, he won by a beak. Look here, let's have it all over again! [_But the Monkey being up a tree, and the Colonel having surreptitiously got rid of his Rabbit among the bracken, and the Tortoise having retired within his shell and firmly declined to come out again, sport is abandoned for the afternoon, to the scarcely disguised relief of the Curate, who is prevented from remaining to tea by the pressure of parish-work._ * * * * * [Illustration: THE ONLY MAN IN ROTTEN ROW. SCENE FROM THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.] * * * * * LADY GAY'S SELECTIONS. _Mount Street, Grosvenor Square._ DEAR MR. PUNCH, Once more I am back in my London "_pied-a-terre_"--(but how it can he a _pied-a-TERRE_, I don't quite know, considering it's a flat on the fourth floor!--_ridiculous_ language French is to be sure!)--and very glad to get home again I assure you. I have spent the last few weeks in the Isle of Wight, which is a British Possession in the latitude of Spithead--(I don't know why Spithead should want any latitude, but it seems to take a good deal!)--sacred to Tourists, _Char-a-bancs_, and Pirates--the latter disguised as Lodging-letters! While there we suffered severely from Regattas; which swarm in the Island at this season, and are hotly pursued by the visitors, with the deadly telescope. I myself was bitten once by the Regatta Bacteria, and very painful it was. My friend, Baron VON HODGEMANN, owner of the _Anglesey_, persuaded me to go on board for a race, and we travelled the whole thirty miles sitting at an angle of forty-five degrees, and singing the war-cry of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club!-- To the mast-head high we nail the Burge,[1] When the north wind snores its dismal dirge! In the trough of the sea with a mighty splurge, The quiv'ring Yacht beats down the surge, And weathers the Warner Light!