A flask of old brandy I always keep handy, And, after an opportune nip, My wits are collected, my aim is corrected, My weapon with firmness I grip. I notice, untroubled, that all things are doubled; Two outlines I hazily trace Of ev'ry cock-pheasant, and shooting grows pleasant When each single bird is a brace; Each teal has a twin, ev'ry black-cock a brother, And so I am bound to hit one or the other! [Illustration] My methods may flurry those neighbours in Surrey Whose eyes I persistently wipe, And startle the Vicar whom once, when in liquor, I shot, in mistake for a snipe; At Bolton or Belvoir my faithful retriever Retrieves more than any dog there; No bag is so heavy as that which I levy At Welbeck, so what do I care? Sustained by old brandy, in covert or stubble, My fame (and my game) I can daily redouble! PERSPECTIVE ['It is sad and humiliating, but true, that our humanity is a matter of geography.'--The _Pall Mall Gazette_.] When told that twenty thousand Japs Are drowned in a typhoon, We feel a trifle shocked, perhaps, But neither faint nor swoon. 'Dear me! How tragic!' we repeat; 'Ah, well! Such things must be!' Our ordinary lunch we eat And make a hearty tea; Such loss of life (with shame I write) Creates no loss of appetite! When on a Rocky Mountain ranch Two hundred souls, all told, Are buried in an avalanche, The tidings leave us cold. 'Poor fellows!' we remark. 'Poor things!' 'All crushed to little bits!' Then go to _Bunty Pulls the Strings_, Have supper at the Ritz, And never even think again Of land-slides in the State of Maine! But when the paper we take in Describes how Mr. Jones Has slipped on a banana-skin And broken sev'ral bones, 'Good Heavens! What a world!' we shout; 'Disasters never cease!' 'What _is_ the Government about?' 'And _where_ are the Police?' Distraught by such appalling news All creature comforts we refuse! Though plagues exterminate the Lapp, And famines ravage Spain, They move us not like some mishap To a suburban train. Each foreign tale of fire or flood, How trumpery it grows Beside a broken collar-stud, A smut upon the nose! For Charity (Alas! how true!) Begins At Home--and ends there, too! 'RAG-TIME' At dawn, beneath my casement, Scrubbing the area stairs, The boot-boy in the basement Is whistling rag-time airs. At breakfast, while I'm eating, A German band outside With unction keeps repeating The latest 'Wedding Glide.' Where'er I go, whate'er I do, I can't escape from 'Hitchykoo'! Pursued, as by a pixy, By each infectious air, I 'Want to be in Dixie' When ev'rybody's there! Though 'Honolulu-looing' I've done my best to shun, What 'Ev'rybody's Doing' I cannot leave undone! The subtle spell I can't withstand Of 'Alexander's Rag-Time Band'!