Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen, Is a dismal failure--is a Might-have-been. In a luckless moment he discovered men Rise to high position through a ready pen. Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore--“I, With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high.” Only he did not possess when he made the trial, Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L--l. [Men who spar with Government need, to back their blows, Something more than ordinary journalistic prose.] Never young Civilian's prospects were so bright, Till an Indian paper found that he could write: Never young Civilian's prospects were so dark, When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark. Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm, In that Indian paper--made his seniors squirm, Quoted office scandals, wrote the tactless truth-- Was there ever known a more misguided youth? When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game, Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame; When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore, Boanerges Blitzen only wrote the more: Posed as Young Ithuriel, resolute and grim, Till he found promotion didn't come to him; Till he found that reprimands weekly were his lot, And his many Districts curiously hot. Till he found his furlough strangely hard to win, Boanerges Blitzen didn't care to pin: Then it seemed to dawn on him something wasn't right-- Boanerges Blitzen put it down to “spite”; Languished in a District desolate and dry; Watched the Local Government yearly pass him by; Wondered where the hitch was; called it most unfair. * * * * * * * * * That was seven years ago--and he still is there! MUNICIPAL “Why is my District death-rate low?” Said Binks of Hezabad. “Well, drains, and sewage-outfalls are “My own peculiar fad. “I learnt a lesson once, It ran “Thus,” quoth that most veracious man:-- It was an August evening and, in snowy garments clad, I paid a round of visits in the lines of Hezabad; When, presently, my Waler saw, and did not like at all, A Commissariat elephant careering down the Mall. I couldn't see the driver, and across my mind it rushed That that Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth. I didn't care to meet him, and I couldn't well get down, So I let the Waler have it, and we headed for the town. The buggy was a new one and, praise Dykes, it stood the strain, Till the Waler jumped a bullock just above the City Drain; And the next that I remember was a hurricane of squeals, And the creature making toothpicks of my five-foot patent wheels.