For those who are not already confirmed rymbelists it may be merciful to explain that, roughly speaking, a rymbel is any poem of two, four, or six stanzas, preferably of five lines each, in which the ultimate word in one verse must inevitably be a miscue for the subject-matter of the next. This miscue is due to three things: eccentricity, deafness, and dementia, all of them pronounced Rymbel family characteristics. Whenever Mr. Rymbel embarks on the first verse, Mrs. Rymbel, because of her deafness and lightness of mind, seizes on the most unexpected meaning embodied in the last word of her husband’s verse, and proceeds properly to mangle it in the second, after which the children take up the tangled skein, and do a little mangling on their own. In the masterly canvas at the head of this page, Mr. R. is seen inflated with an afflatus and embarking on his first verse. Mrs. R., with a tight hold on the baby, is feverishly awaiting her all important cue. Symbol, their beautiful daughter, is the seated lady shown at the right of Mr. R. The astute reader will already have guessed, because of the prevalence of flowering hay in her hair, that, mentally, Symbol is, to put it charitably, only sparking on one cylinder. Ramble, the eldest son, has, it will be seen, just rebuked Rondeau and Rhyme, the twins, who, after hearing parts of their father’s verse, have turned to their mother to mutter: “What’s the matter with his metre-motor, mater?” Miss Carolyn Wells, who has for years been on the most intimate terms with the Rymbels, and who might almost be called a member of the family, has preserved, as souvenirs of a boy-and-girl affair with Master Ramble, two noteworthy examples of rymbelican verse. In the first of these the Rymbels have touchingly voiced their preferences for the nobler and loftier bards of our day. It is entitled: A RYMBEL OF RHYMERS Dear Edith Thomas! Oft do I Feel in my heart the call of her. Swift to my book-shelf then I fly, And, hovering ’twixt a laugh and cry, I read and re-read all of her. Oliver Herford! How can praise Add aught to his renown? His comic kits, his fetching fays, His books and works and healthful plays, Are known all over town. Charles Hanson Towne! his lyrics flow Soft as the dews of Harmon; His tastes are musical, and so To please them he will often go To “Lohengrin” or “Carmen.” Bliss Carman all our hearts must win; To higher thought he’d urge us; Divinely tall, divinely thin, Austere of mien, he should have been A beadle or a burgess. G. Burgess, Super-Sulphide! yet Perhaps more saint than sinner. His rhymes cavort and pirouette, And as for that mad thing, Vivette, I almost wish I’d been her. Oh, Witter Bynner, oftener sound Your note of lyric joys! Come, poets, let us gather round, Lest our brave pipings yet be drowned By some strange foreign Noyes!