But I am digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, we were discussing that great Persian, Allirap Asras. Those authorities who think that he was a predecessor of BAHRAM, the hunter, are wrong, for there was never any Persian of the name at all. I am sorry to have deceived you, but you must blame not me but a certain domestic remedy. If one bright cart, drawn by a mettled steed and dispensing this medicinal beverage at a penny a glass, will insist upon being outside Westminster Abbey and another at the top of Cockspur Street every working day of the week for ever and ever, how can one help sooner or later spelling its staple product backwards and embroidering a little on the result? But what I want to know is--who drinks sarsaparilla, anyway? * * * * * [Illustration: _Vague Tommy (writing letter)._ "WOT DAY IS IT?" _Chorus._ "THE FOURTEENTH." _Tommy._ "WOT MONTH?" _Chorus._ "OCTOBER." _Tommy._ "WOT YEAR?"] * * * * * "What fine fellows we might have been had we lived in those bygone times. We too, perhaps, would have influenced history and our names might have been inscribed in the book of immorality."--_New Ireland._ We understand now why they call it Sin-Fain. * * * * * [Illustration: LAMENTABLE LARCENY IN A BOARDING-HOUSE.] * * * * * A DECLARATION OF WAR. This is the yarn that M'Larty told by the brazier fire, Where over the mud-filled trenches the star shells blaze and expire-- A yarn he swore was a true one; but Mac was an awful liar:-- "'Way up in the wild North Country, a couple of years ago I hauled Hank out of a snowdrift--it was maybe thirty 'below,' And I packed him along to my shanty and I took and thawed him with snow. "He was stiff as a cold-store bullock, I might have left him for dead, But I packed him along, as I've told you, and melted him out instead, And I rolled him up in my blankets and put him to sleep in my bed. "So he dwelt in my humble shanty while the wintry gales did roar, While the blizzards howled in the passes and the timber wolves at the door, And he slept in my bunk at night-time while I stretched out on the floor. "He watched me frying my bacon and he said that the smell was grand; He watched me bucking the stove-wood, but he never lent me a hand, And he played on my concertina the airs of his native land. "And one month grew into two months and two months grew into three, And there he was sitting and smiling like a blooming Old Man of the Sea, Eating my pork and beans up and necking my whisky and tea. "You say, 'Why didn't I shift him?' For the life o' me I dunno; I suppose there's something inside me that can't tell a fellow to go I hauled by the heels from a snowdrift at maybe thirty 'below.'...