_C. (with emotion.)_ Loo' at that now, ain't that a sight to make a man o' you? All these brit appy young faces. I could play for 'em all ni'--blesh their 'arts! Lor, what a rickety chair I'm on, and thish bloomin' brash inshtrumen's gone and changed ends. Now then, quicken up, let 'em 'ave it--you are a shulky young chap! _P._ It is not sulks but misery. I swear to you, Cornet, that each hammer I strike vibrates on my own heart-strings! _C._ Then you can be innerpennant of a pianner. _P._ I am young--but the young have their sorrows, I suppose. Is it nothing to have to minister to others' gaiety with a bitter pang in one's own breast? _C._ Thash wha' comes o'shtickin' to the leminade! A LITTLE LATER. _P. (aghast)._ I say, what _are_ you about? You mustn't, you know! _C. (smiling dreamily)._ It'sh all ri', dear boy! If a man fines he can't breathe in 'sh bootsh--on'y loshical coursh 'fore him is to play in socksh--d'ye see? AT PARTING. _The Cornet (to hostess, with benignant tenderness.)_ Goori', Madam, Gobblesh you, I do' min' tellin' you, you've made me and the pianner here, and ah, 'undreds of young innoshent arts very 'appy, Madam, you may ta' that from _me_. I hope we've given complete satisfaction, 'm sure we've had mosht pleasant shupper--I mean pleashant evenin'--_sho_ glad we came. And you mushn't ta' no notish my young fren, he'sh been makin' lil too free with the leminade, d'ye see? _Goo_ ri! [_Exit gracefully, and is picked up at bottom of Staircase by the Pianist._ * * * * * [Illustration: TOBY'S GREETING.] * * * * * A NEW YEAR'S CARD. _Library, House of Commons, New Year's Eve._ HONOURED SIR, I find in the Letter Bag a communication from that eminent statesman GRANDOLPH. But I think it will keep for a week, and on this New Year's Eve I will put in the Bag a letter of my own, addressed to him who, take him for all in all, (as BACON wrote) is the most Eminent Man of the century. No one, a cynic has said, is a hero to his own valet--meaning, I suppose, that the closer a man is looked into the less profound his valley appears. It has been my lot to sit at your feet for close upon half-a-century, perched upon the pile of volumes which, oddly enough, never grows an eighth-of-an-inch higher through the revolving years. You have honoured me with your closest confidence. I have known your inmost thoughts. I have often seen you, as you are weekly presented to an admiring public, chuckling with finger to nose and brightened eye over the inception of a joke, and I have observed you afterwards a little depressed on reading it in the proof, struck with the conviction that it was not quite so good as you thought. I am not your valet. But you are truly my Hero.