CAPTAIN BROWN, HOME ON LEAVE AND VERY WAR-WEARY, DECIDES THAT AT ALL COSTS HE WILL SPEND AN EVENING WHERE KHAKI IS NOT. HE HAS PLEASANT RECOLLECTIONS OF A VISIT, IN TIMES OF PEACE, TO A DELIGHTFUL BOHEMIAN CLUB OF WHICH ROBINSON WAS A MEMBER. SO HE RINGS UP ROBINSON, WHO WILL BE DELIGHTED TO SEE HIM. BROWN EXPERIENCES A DISTINCT SHOCK ON MEETING ROBINSON, AND A STILL GREATER SHOCK ON ENTERING THE CLUB.] * * * * * [Illustration: _Head Waiter_. "SORRY, SAIR--CAN'T HELP IT. FULL UP! NO ROOM FOR A LONG TIME. AFTER ALL, DERE IS A WAR ON."] * * * * * TO MY BUTCHER. O butcher, butcher of the bulbous eye, That in hoarse accents bidst me "buy, buy, buy!" Waving large hands suffused with brutish gore, Have I not found thee evil to the core? The greedy grocer grinds the face of me, The baker trades on my necessity, And from the milkman have I no surcease, But thou art Plunder's perfect masterpiece. These others are not always lost to shame; My grocer, now--last week he let me claim A pound of syrup--'twas a kindly deed To help a fellow-townsman in his need, Though harsh the price, and I was feign to crawl About his feet ere I might buy at all. But thou--although a myriad flocks may crop By Sussex gorse or Cheviot's grassy top, A myriad herds tumultuously snort From Palos Verdes eastward to Del Norte, Or where the fierce vaquero's bold bravado Resounds about the Llano Estacado; Though every abattoir works overtime And every stall in Smithfield groans with prime Cuts, from thy lips the ready lie falls pat, How thou art sold clean out of this and that, But will oblige me, just for old time's sake, With half a shin bone or some hard flank steak; Or (if with mutton I prefer to deck My festive board) the scraggy end of neck. And once, when goaded to a desperate stand, I wrung a sirloin from thy grudging hand, Did not thy boy, a cheeky little brute With shifty eyes, mislay the thing _en route_, Depositing at my address the bones Intended for the dog of Mr. Jones? I sometimes think that never runs so thin The milk as when it leaves the milkman's tin; That every link the sausageman prepares Harbours some wandering Towser unawares. And Binns, the baker (whom a murrain seize!), Immune from fraud's accustomed penalties, Sells me a stuff compound of string and lead, And has the nerve to name the substance bread. But deafer far to the voice of conscience grown The type that cuts me off a pound of bone Wherefrom an ounce of fat forlornly drops, And calls the thing two shillings' worth of chops; More steeped in crime the heart that dares to fleece My purse of eighteen-pence for one small piece Of tripe, whereof, when times were not so hard, The price was fourpence for the running yard!