_Tommy_ (_on his way to the Browns' Juvenile Garden Party_). "NOW, NURSE, REMEMBER, WHEN ONCE WE'VE PASSED THAT GARDEN GATE, _YOU DON'T BELONG TO ME!_"] * * * * * FATHER WILLIAM. (_Latest Anglo-Teutonic Version, as repeated to the Caterpillar of State by Alice, in Blunderland, from vague and mixed reminiscences of Southey, Lewis Carroll, and the Reports of the Debates in the British Parliament and the German Reichstag, concerning the Home-Rule Bill and the Army Bill respectively._) "I'm afraid I am changed, Sir." said ALICE; "I can't remember things as I used--and I don't keep to the same author for ten minutes together!" "Can't remember _what_ things?" said the Caterpillar of State. "Well, I've tried to sing '_Rule, Britannia_', but it all came different, and got mixed up with '_The Watch on the Rhine_!'" ALICE replied, in a very melancholy voice. "Repeat '_You are old, Father William_,'" said the Caterpillar of State. ALICE folded her hands, and began:-- "Good-morrow!" the youth to the Woodcutter cried; "Father WILLIAM, you're 'sniggling,' I see!" With a smile of bland 'cuteness the Old Man replied, "Master WILLIAM, good morrow! I _be_!" "You are old, Father WILLIAM," the young KAISER said, "And your hair, what there is of it, 's white; And yet you still stand at the Government's head-- Do you think, at your age, it is right?" "Some twenty years since," Father WILLIAM replied, "I'd a passionate wish to retire; But as I grow younger each year, I have tried To subdue that untimely desire." "You are old," said the youth, "yet your seat appears firm, You are still pretty good over timber; Your double back somersaults make your foes squirm. What keeps you so nimble and limber?" "In my youth," said the Senior, "I kept all my limbs-- And some say my principles--supple; And that's why old age neither stiffens nor dims, And years with alertness I couple." "You are old," said the youth, "and your 'jaw' should be weak, I've often heard BIZZY pooh-pooh it. Yet you polish off JOE, and tap GOSCHEN'S big beak; Pray, how do you manage to do it?" "In _my_ youth," said the Sage, "Fair Debate was the law, And genuine Eloquence rife; And so in an age of mere Brummagem 'jaw' I can still hold my own in the strife." "You are old," said the youth; "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balance that eel on the end of your nose-- What makes you so awfully clever?" "_You_ are young," smiled old WILL; "you don't yet understand. The point--of the eel--you'd be missing; But when you're an Old Parliamentary Hand You will find it as easy as kissing!" "I've caught an eel, also," observed the young 'sniggler,' "_I_'m not, like you, beaked _à la_ Toucan; Mine's still smaller than yours, and a terrible wriggler; I wish I could work it as _you_ can!"