MADEMOISELLE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE Was a witty and beautiful miss, Extremely correct in her ways, But her English consisted of this: “Oh my! pretty man, if you please, Blom boodin, biftek, currie lamb, Bouldogue, two franc half, quite ze cheese, Rosbif, me spik Angleesh, godam.” A waiter, for seasons before, Had basked in her beautiful gaze, And burnt to dismember MILOR, _He loved_ DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE. He said to her, “Méchante THÉRÈSE, Avec désespoir tu m’accables. Penses-tu, DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE, Ses intentions sont honorables? “Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu ôses— Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère, _Je lui dirai de quoi l’on compose_ _Vol au vent à la Financière_!” LORD LARDY knew nothing of this— The waiter’s devotion ignored, But he gazed on the beautiful miss, And never seemed weary or bored. The waiter would screw up his nerve, His fingers he’d snap and he’d dance— And LORD LARDY would smile and observe, “How strange are the customs of France!” Well, after delaying a space, His tradesmen no longer would wait: Returning to England apace, He yielded himself to his fate. LORD LARDY espoused, with a groan, MISS DARDY’S developing charms, And agreed to tag on to his own, Her name and her newly-found arms. The waiter he knelt at the toes Of an ugly and thin coryphée, Who danced in the hindermost rows At the Théatre des Variétés. MADEMOISELLE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE Didn’t yield to a gnawing despair But married a soldier, and plays As a pretty and pert Vivandière. DISILLUSIONED BY AN EX-ENTHUSIAST OH, that my soul its gods could see As years ago they seemed to me When first I painted them; Invested with the circumstance Of old conventional romance: Exploded theorem! The bard who could, all men above, Inflame my soul with songs of love, And, with his verse, inspire The craven soul who feared to die With all the glow of chivalry And old heroic fire; I found him in a beerhouse tap Awaking from a gin-born nap, With pipe and sloven dress; Amusing chums, who fooled his bent, With muddy, maudlin sentiment, And tipsy foolishness! The novelist, whose painting pen To legions of fictitious men A real existence lends, Brain-people whom we rarely fail, Whene’er we hear their names, to hail As old and welcome friends; I found in clumsy snuffy suit, In seedy glove, and blucher boot, Uncomfortably big. Particularly commonplace, With vulgar, coarse, stockbroking face, And spectacles and wig. My favourite actor who, at will, With mimic woe my eyes could fill With unaccustomed brine: A being who appeared to me (Before I knew him well) to be A song incarnadine;