PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 99. November 8, 1890. MR. PUNCH'S PRIZE NOVELS. NO. V.--MIGNON'S MESS-ROOM. (_BY_ TOM RUM SUMMER, _AUTHOR OF "MIGNON'S MA," "MIGNON'S HUB," "FOOTLE'S FATHER," "TOOTLE'S TOOTSIE," "UGLY TOM," "YOUR RICH RICHARD," "A BABY IN BARRACKS," "STUCK," "HOOP-LORE," "WENT FOR THAT PLEECEMAN," &C., &C., &C., &C., &C., &C., &C., &C._) ["This," writes the eminent Author, "is a _real, true_ story of the life of soldiers and children. Soldiers are _grand, noble_ fellows. They are so _manly_, and all smoke a great deal of tobacco. My drawl is the only genuine one. I could do a lot more of the same sort, but I charge extra for pathos. I'm a man.--T.R.S."] CHAPTER I. "Three blind mice-- See how they run." --_Old Song_, The Officers of the Purple Dragoons were gathered together in their ante-room. It was a way they had. They were all there. Grand fellows, too, most of them--tall, broad-shouldered, and silky-haired, and as good as gold. That gets tiresome after a time, but everything can be set right with one downright rascally villain--a villain, mind you, that poor, weak women, know nothing about. GAVOR was that kind of man. Of course that was why he was to break his neck, and get smashed up generally. But I am anticipating, and a man should never anticipate. EMILY, for instance, never did. EMILY--Captain EMILY, of the Purple Dragoons--was the biggest fool in the Service. Everybody told him so; and EMILY, who had a trustful, loving nature, always believed what he was told. [Illustration] "I nev-ah twry," he used to say--it was a difficult word to pronounce, but EMILY always stuck to it as only a soldier can. and got it out somehow--"I nev-ah twry to wremember things the wwrong way wround." A roar of laughter greeted this sally. They all knew he meant "anticipate," but they all loved their EMILY far too well to set him right. "'Pon my soul," he continued, "it's quite twrue. You fellows may wroawr wiv laughtewr if you like, but it's twrue, and you know it's twrne." There was another explosion of what EMILY would have called "mewrwriment," at this, for it was well-known to be one of the gallant dragoon's most humorous efforts. A somewhat protracted silence followed. FOOTLES, however, took it in both hands, and broke it with no greater emotion than he would have shown if he had been called upon to charge a whole squadron of Leicestershire Bullfinches, or to command a Lord Mayor's escort on the 9th of November. Dear old FOOTLES! He wasn't clever, no Purple Dragoon could be, but he wasn't the biggest fool in the Service, like EMILY, and all the rest of them. Still he loved another's.