He played bezique with me, one day, To find that, at the close of play, He'd lost each game; The total came To three pounds seventeen. He never paid a cent of that, And took away my new top-hat, Leaving behind A hideous kind Of gibus, old and green. But still it filled me with relief, Observing his offence, To think that he was not a thief-- In the Police Court sense! The details of his private life, The way he treats his luckless wife, Make all aware That he can care For nothing but himself; But what on earth is she to do, Though snubbed and beaten black and blue? To sue, of course, For a divorce Would be a waste of pelf. Yet, all the same, my aunt avows, It saves her much expense To feel she has a faithful spouse-- In the Police Court sense! CLUB CANTOS CANTO I THE ATHENÆUM Dignified, austere, infestive, Stands the stately Athenæum, With an atmosphere suggestive Of a mausoleum. Freezing silence reigns within (You can hear the falling pin!) And the punster points with pride To the _frieze_ you get outside! Here the Bishop, with his nether Limbs in leggings swathed demurely (Hatbrim fastened by a tether To the crown securely), Buttonholes some friendly Duke, To discuss the Pentateuch, Or abstracts (with absent mind) All th' umbrellas he can find. [Illustration] Here each great and famous Briton Snored and slumbered almost daily: Thackeray and Bulwer Lytton, Dickens and Disraeli. Trollope through this doorway stept, In that chair Macaulay slept, While, with cotton in his ears, Herbert Spencer snubbed his peers. Here our scientific pedants Write their Monographs on Rabbits Or their studies of the Red-ant's Socialistic habits. Here the statesman threshes out Themes of Philosophic Doubt, While the Laureate scours each shelf For a rhyme to 'Guelph' and 'self.' Poet, painter, politician, Throng this Hall of the Immortals; Sophist, sage, and statistician Cross these pompous portals. Here the pundits of the State Herd with the Episcopate; Scientist and learned lord Mix with Mr. H-mphr-y W-rd. If the roof fell in, ah me! Where would Mother England be? CANTO II WHITE'S Observe the élite, staring into the street, Through that famous elliptical casement; How coldly they eye all the friends who pass by, With a look of self-conscious effacement! This ancient tradition of non-recognition Is dear to all clubs (save Soho ones!), Where Brummels and Nashes still twirl their moustaches, And even the windows are _Beau_-ones!