He, whose amazing advent was all fire, Stoop to the leaden level of cold water? A spectacle indeed to tame and tire The zeal of his most confident supporter. What will DUNRAVEN say? Quidnuncs will quiz, And Balfour-worshippers will smirk and chuckle, And ask if he considers it "good biz" To the Teetotal interest to truckle. They may be right--or wrong, these babblers busy. They were not _always_ right about BEN DIZZY. Meanwhile he poses there as advocate Of this last panacea of his adoption. He holds the only way to save the State Is Temperance, enforced by Local Option. Spirited Foreign Policy? Anon! Fiscal Economy? Quite secondary! All is no use till the Drink-Demon's gone! BUNG, who so loved him, feels his colour vary; And, while he perorates to all men's wonder. Smug WILFRID smiles and whispers, "That's _my_ thunder!" * * * [Illustration: GRANDOLPH'S LATEST.] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. My faithful "Co." has been reading _Marooned_, by Mr. CLARK RUSSELL, an author who delights in stories of nautical adventure. My worthy follower declares that the novel, although rather spun out, is full of interest. He was especially pleased with Mr. CLARK RUSSELL'S anxiety to make his meaning clear when talking of things maritime. He particularly instances a passage in Vol. II., page 17. Here it is: "It is proper I should state here, for the information for those to whom sea-terms are unintelligible, that a studding-sail-boom is a long smooth spar that reeves through irons, fixed upon the yard to which it belongs." How land-lubbers would be able to understand the marine technicalities Mr. RUSSELL introduces into his stories without explanations such as this, it would be difficult to say. But with such assistance, a studding-sail-boom becomes as easy of identification as a marling-spike lashed to a forecastle spinaker-boom, close hauled aport under trysails, blowing out like flags from the grips of clew-lines and leech-lines towards the close of a second dog-watch! Shiver LINDLEY MURRAY'S timbers! but what can be finer than a bulkhead battened down with the scandalised main-sail of a top-gallant clipper-rigged halliard! Ah, what indeed! "Co." has also been improving his mind by reading a new edition of Mr. JOSEPH FOSTER'S _Noble and Gentle Families of Royal Descent_, in which he has found, amongst other interesting matter, the recently much discussed pedigree of the Duke of FIFE. Like all Mr. FOSTER'S books of reference, the two handsome volumes are invaluable to the genealogist, and no library can be accurately said to be _quite_ complete without them. BARON DE BOOK-WORMS & CO. * * * * *