* * * * * [Illustration: A CADET'S DAY. 9 A.M.--SAD BAGS. 7 P.M.--GLAD RAGS.] * * * * * A MINISTERIAL WAIL. ["The most trenchant critics of the Government since its formation have been Mr. PRINGLE and Mr. HOGGE."--_British Weekly_]. The gipsy camping in a dingle I reckon as a lucky dog; He doesn't hear the voice of PRINGLE, He doesn't hear the snorts of HOGGE. The moujik crouching in his ingle Somewhere near Tomsk or Taganrog I envy; he is far from PRINGLE And equally remote from HOGGE. I find them deadly when they're single, But deadlier in the duologue, When the insufferable PRINGLE Backs the intolerable HOGGE. I'd rather walk for miles on shingle Or flounder knee-deep in a bog Than listen to a speech from PRINGLE Or hearken to the howls of HOGGE. Their tyrannous exactions mingle The vices of Kings Stork and Log; One day I give the palm to PRINGLE, The next I offer it to HOGGE. The style of _Mr. Alfred Jingle_ Was jumpy, but he did not clog His sense with woolly words, like PRINGLE, With priggish petulance, like HOGGE. I'd love to see the _Bing Boys_ bingle, To go to music-halls _incog._, Instead of being posed by PRINGLE And heckled by the hateful HOGGE. My appetite is gone; I "pingle" (As Norfolk puts it) with my prog; My meals are marred by thoughts of PRINGLE, My sleep is massacred by HOGGE. O patriots, with your nerves a-tingle, With all your righteous souls agog, Will none of you demolish PRINGLE And utterly extinguish HOGGE? * * * * * OF MARGARINE: _C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le beurre._ * * * * * [Illustration: _Friend_ (_to animal painter_). "I SAY, OLD CHAP, YOU LOOK A BIT OFF COLOUR TO-DAY." _Artist_. "YES, I AM. I CAN'T DO A STROKE OF WORK." _Friend_. "ONE OF YOUR MEATLESS DAYS, IN FACT."] * * * * * THE MUD LARKS. IN the long long-ago, Frobisher and I, assisted by a handful of native troopers, kept the flag flying at M'Vini. We hoisted it to the top of a tree at sun-up, where it remained, languidly flapping its tatters over leagues of Central African bush till sun-set, when we hauled it down again--an arduous life. After we had been at M'Vini about six months, had shot everything worth shooting, and knew one another's funny stories off by heart, Frobisher and I grew bored with each other, hated in fact the sight, sound and mere propinquity of each other, and, shutting ourselves up in our separate huts, communicated only on occasions of the direct necessity, and then by the curtest of official notes. Thus a further three months dragged on. Then one red-hot afternoon came Frobisher's boy to my wattle-and-dab, bearing a note.