"WHAT WILL YOU DO--SAVE SCRIBBLE AND ORATE? WERE YOU INDEED--AH ME!--THAT STRONG MAN ARMED FOR WHOM SO LONG I'VE WAITED, AND STILL WAIT; THEN, THEN PERCHANCE, I MIGHT--WHO KNOWS?--BE CHARMED TO LILY-GIRT LEGITIMIST WAYS OF YORE. AT PRESENT 'TIS BUT--ONE PRETENDER MORE!"] * * * * * ODE ON A DISTANT PARTRIDGE. (_By an Absent-minded Sportsman._) [Illustration] Well, I'm blest, I'm pretty nearly Speechless, as I watch that bird, Saving that I mutter merely One concise, emphatic word-- What that is, may be inferred! English prose is, to my sorrow, Insufficient for the task. Would that I could freely borrow Expletives from Welsh or Basque-- One or two is all I ask! Failing that, let so-called verses Serve to mitigate my grief Doggerel now and then disperses Agonies that need relief. (Missing birds of these is chief!) Blankly tramping o'er the stubbles Is a bore, to put it mild; But, in short, to crown my troubles, _One_ mishap has made me riled, Driv'n me, like the coveys, wild For at last I flush a partridge. Ten yards rise, an easy pot! Click! Why, bless me, where's the cartridge? Hang it! there, I clean forgot Putting _them_ in ere I shot! * * * * * QUERY.--Would an ideal barrister be a counsel of perfection? * * * * * THE MOBILISED MANDARIN _Or, the March of Civilisation._ About the merry Mandarin His fatal gift for humour, I find it passing hard to pin My faith to every rumour. This war, for instance. Fancy shuts Both eyes and vainly labours To grasp the news that he is nuts On blowing up his neighbours. If so, he threatens to deface, Beyond all recognition, His right of kinship with a race Whose excellent tradition, Oldest of old traditions, has Time out of mind begun by This rule:--_Do not to others as You'd rather not be done by._ Ignoring now the ancient bards, He must have emulated The doctrine which _Ah Sin_ at cards So darkly demonstrated, When, flush of duplicate supplies, Well up his sleeves he slid 'em-- _Do those whom you will otherwise Be done by_:--and he did 'em. Observe this sad example of Imported Western culture! Symbol of peace, the sucking-dove Knocks under to the vulture; And prophets of a prior age Might fairly be astounded To find the system of the sage CONFUCIUS worse confounded! * * * * * LADAS! (_By a Disgusted Backer._) _Ladas, Ladas,_ Go along with you, do. I'm now stone-broke, All on account of you. It wasn't a lucky Leger, And I wish I'd been a hedger, Though you _did_ look sweet, Before defeat---- But I've thoroughly done with you! * * * * *