Why can I not smoke, having chosen a smoking carriage? Why should I be dictated to by a disagreeable and elderly stranger, who snores half the journey, and helps herself to ardent spirits in the tunnels? Why should I be threatened with imprisonment, and be only pardoned by repaying my fare because I have lost my ticket? And, lastly (for the present), why have I been carried to Little Peddlington-on-the-Ditch when I desired to reach the British Coast _en route_ for Paris? * * * * * AIRS RESUMPTIVE. III.--THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT SAWBATH-BREAKER. (_Being a Record of the 12th._) It was an ancient poacher-man, Bronzed as a penny-bun;-- "By thy beady eye, now tell me why, Thou offspring of a gun, O tell me why beneath thy Exceeding hoary tuft Precisely half a brace of grouse chin's Hangs, admirably stuffed?" He blinked his beady eye; his voice Was singularly clear; And as I listened to his tale I could not choose but hear. "Mon, ye mun ken I have not aye Been sec a feckless loon; In me behold the wreck of what Was once The MCAROON. Oft have I made a merrie bag Across my native heath; Shot o'er my ain ancestral dawgs Or aiblins underneath. Until lang syne, a monie year-- Ye couldna weel be born-- The blessed twalfth of August fell Upon a Sawbath morn. Braw were the birds, my gun was braw, My bluid was pipin' hot; I thocht it crime to gie 'em time-- Allowance like a yacht. Scarce had I bagged but ane wee bird, There was the de'il to pay: It's unco deadly skaith wi' Scots To break the Sawbath day. The billies wha the nicht before Were fou at my expense, They deaved the meenister aboot My verra bad offence. An' a' the Kirk declared the work Was perfect deevilrie, An' hung the bird by this absurd Arrangement whilk ye see. Twal' month an' mair my shame I bear Beneath the curse o' noon, A paltry wraith of what was once The Laird o' MCAROON. An' aye when fa's the blessed twalfth Upo' the Sawbath day, I bear the bird in this absurd An' aggravatin' way." The ancient ceased his sorry tale, And craved a trifling boon, To wet the whistle of what was once The Laird o' MCAROON. * * * * * [Illustration: THE OBSTINACY OF THE PARENT. _Emily Jane._ "YES, I'M ALWAYS A-SAYIN' TO FATHER AS 'E OUGHTER RETIRE FROM THE CROSSIN', BUT KEEP AT IT 'E WILL, THOUGH IT AIN'T JUST NO MORE 'N THE BROOM AS 'OLDS 'IM UP!"] * * * * * Ditto to Mr. Courtney. As after jackdaw chatter and owl-hooting, Gratefully follows Philomel's dulcet fluting; So, after HANBURY'S gibes and HEALY'S jeers, COURTNEY'S cool reason gladdens patriot ears. _O, si sic omnes!_ But though his sole voice Sound "in the wilderness," yet _some_ rejoice To hear, 'midst blare of venomed wrath and vanity, The moving tones of brave, sound-hearted sanity.