What means _Train de Luxe_? Peppery "PUNJAB" replies, Two dirty sleeping-oars wherein one lies Awaiting a breakfast; to feel disgust utter At coffee, two boiled eggs, and plain roll and butter, (Miscalled "_Grub de Luxe_," in the bitterest chaff,) At the humorous price of four francs and a-half! Item: Thirty-five francs for a bottle of brandy! (A thing that--at breakfast--of course comes in handy). A horrible dinner; no wine, and no beer, Not even a soda your spirits to cheer; No water to wash in at Turin--just think! On arrival in France, not a drop e'en to drink! What wonder poor "PUNJAB," who hails from the "Garrick," Got hungry as VASHTI, and dry as a hayrick? An _Edition de Luxe_, as a rule, is a sell, But a _Train de Luxe_ sure as a fraud bears the bell, Which promises travel more cosy and quicker, And leaves you half starved, without money--or liquor! * * * * * KILLING NO MURDER!--A Correspondent of the _Times_, protesting against the assumption of combatant rank by the Army Surgeons, writes:--"A military doctor is armed, and like others is entitled to defend himself when attacked, but that is a very different thing from giving him full licence to kill." The Correspondent evidently overlooks the powers afforded by a medical diploma! * * * * * [Illustration: "IT'S AN ILL WIND" &C. "Partridge-shooting will be postponed in several districts till the middle of September."--_Daily Telegraph_, August, 28. _Chorus of Partridges_. "LONG MAY IT RAIN!"] * * * * * MISLED BY A MANUAL! (THE LAMENT OF A WOULD-BE LINGUIST.) When on my Continental tour preparing to depart, I bought a Conversation-Book, and got it up by heart; A handy manual it seemed, convenient and neat, And gave for each contingency a dialogue complete. Upon the weather--wet _or_ fine--I could at will discourse, Or bargain for a bonnet, or a boot-jack, or a horse; Tell dentists, in three languages, which tooth it is that hurts; Or chide a laundress for the lack of starch upon my shirts. I landed full of idioms, which I fondly hoped to air-- But crushing disappointment met my efforts everywhere. The waiters I in fluent French addressed at each hotel Would answer me in English, and--confound 'em!--spoke it well. Those phrases I was furnished with, for Germany or France, I realised, with bitterness, would never have a chance! I swore that they should hear me yet, and proudly turned my back On polyglots in swallowtails, and left the beaten track.... They spoke the native language _now_; but--it was too absurd-- Of none of their own idioms they apparently had heard! My most colloquial phrases fell, I found, extremely flat. They _may_ have come out wrong-side up, but none the worse for that.