PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 107. August 11, 1894. LORD ORMONT'S MATE AND MATEY'S AMINTA. BY G***GE M*R*D*TH. VOLUME III. And now the climax comes not with tongue-lolling sheep-fleece wolves, ears on top remorselessly pricked for slaughter of the bleating imitated lamb, here a fang pointing to nethermost pit not of stomach but of Acheron, tail waving in derision of wool-bearers whom the double-rowed desiring mouth soon shall grip, food for mamma-wolf and baby-wolf, papa-wolf looking on, licking chaps expectant of what shall remain; and up goes the clamour of flocks over the country-side, and up goes howling of shepherds shamefully tricked by Æsop-fable artifice or doggish dereliction of primary duty; for a watch has been set through which the wolf-enemy broke paws on the prowl; and the King feels this, and the Government, a slab-faced jubber-mubber of contending punies, party-voters to the front, conscience lagging how far behind no man can tell, and the country forgotten, a lout dragging his chaw-bacon hobnails like a flask-fed snail housed safely, he thinks, in unbreakable shell soon to be broken, and no man's fault, while the slow country sinks to the enemy, ships bursting, guns jammed, and a dull shadow of defeat on a war-office drifting to the tide-way of unimagined back-stops on a lumpy cricket-field of national interests. But this was a climax revealed to the world. The Earl was deaf to it. Lady CHARLOTTE dumbed it surprisingly. Change the spelling, put a for u and n for b in the dumbed, and you have the way MORSFIELD mouthed it, and MATEY swimming with BROWNY full in the Harwich tide; head under heels up down they go in Old Ocean, a glutton of such embraces, lapping softly on a pair of white ducks tar-stained that very morning and no mistake. "I have you fast!" cried MATEY. "Two and two's four," said BROWNY. She slipped. "_Are_ four," corrected he, a tutor at all times, boys and girls taken in and done for, and no change given at the turnstiles. "Catch as catch can," was her next word. Plop went a wave full in the rosy mouth. "Where's the catch of this?" stuttered the man. "A pun, a pun!" bellowed the lady. "But not by four-in-hand from London." She had him there. He smiled a blue acquiescence. So they landed, and the die was cast, ducks changed, and the goose-pair braving it in dry clothes by the kitchen fire. There was nothing else to be done; for the answer confessed to a dislike of immersions two at a time, and the hair clammy with salt like cottage-bacon on a breakfast-table. Lord ORMONT sat with the jewels seized from the debating, unbeaten sister's grasp. "She is at Marlow," he opined. "Was," put in Lady CHARLOTTE. The answer blew him for memory. "MORSFIELD's dead," his lordship ventured; "jobbed by a foil with button off." "And a good job too."