Punch, or The London Charivari | Page 3

away at the Princess like bellowsy blends of Blizzards, Cloud-bursts, Tornadoes and Tritons.
"Oh, do for pity's sake, stop them!" cried AGRICULTURA, struggling hard to keep herself and her garments together. "It seems as though the heavens have become one vast sluice, that keeps pouring down water, as my predecessor, the Prince, put it. I have not a dry thread about me. Please put them in their Bags--_do_--whilst I have a little talk with you about them, and the mischief they have been doing."
Two prolonged chuckles, a deep stentorian one and a sharp staccato one, came from the two Bags already hanging to the wall of the Cavern, from whence subsequently protruded the round ruddy form of the North and the pinched figure of the East Wind. "Ho! ho! ho!" chortled the North Wind, chokingly. "Who says I do all the damage?"
"He! he! he!" sniggered the East Wind, raspingly. "Who is the pickle and spoil-sport _now_, I should like to know?"
"Shut up!" said the Mother of the Winds, sharply. "And as to you two," she added, turning to the South and West Winds, "if you don't stand still and give an account of yourselves, I'll pop you into your respective Bags in the twinkling of a hundred-ton gun!"
"Why, who is _she_, that she should call us over the clouds?" cried the two Winds, stopping their blowing a bit, and pointing to the Princess.
"She is my guest," said the old woman; "and if that does not satisfy you, you need only get into the Bags. Do you understand me now?"
Well, this did the business at once; and the two Winds, in a breath, began to relate whence they came, and what they had been doing for nearly three months past.
"We have been spoiling the English Summer," they said.
"_That's_ nothing new," muttered the Mother of the Winds.
"_Isn't_ it, though--in the way _we've_ done it?" cried the two, triumphantly. "Why, those two Boys over yonder, uniting their flatulent forces, could not have done better--or worse. Ho! ho! ho! They made last winter a frozen Sahara. _We've_ made the present summer a squashy Swamp! The winter was as dry as the dust of RAMESES. The summer has been as wet as old St. Swithin's gingham. We soaked June, we drenched July, and we drowned August. We squelched the strawberry season, reducing tons of promising fruit to flavourless pulp, and the growers to damp despair. Whooosh!! What a wetting we gave 'em!!! As soon as the Cricket Season started, so did _we_! Didn't we just? We simply sopped all the wickets, and spoilt all the matches, either keeping the cricketers waiting in the pavilion or slipping about on sloppy slithery turf. Consequently, the Cricketing Season has been a sickening sell. We 'watered down' the 'averages' of all the 'cracks.' S.W. was too many for W.G. (GRACE, of Gloucester), and W.W. gave the other W.W. (READ, of Surrey) a fair doing! We followed 'The Leviathan' in particular about persistently, till he must be real glad to 'take his hook' to Australia. Wherever he was playing, from Kennington to Clifton, we combined our forces, swooped down on him, and simply washed him out!"
"Wanton wags!" said the Mother of the Winds, reproachfully.
"Ra-_ther_," yelled her promising offspring in chorus. "But that's not all, is it, S.W.?--is it W.W.? We mucked up Lawn Tennis, soaked Henley Regatta, nearly spoilt the German EMPEROR's visit, ruined all the al fresco functions of the Season--slap!--flooded Society out of London, only to deluge them in their flitting till they wished they were back again, intensified the Influenza Epidemic, and--"
"Oh! stop, stop!" moaned the Old Woman. "Those Boys yonder will burst--with jealousy. But what have you been doing to the Princess AGRICULTURA here?"
The two broke into a spasmodic duo of delight and disdain. "Why look at her?" they cried. "Doesn't she speak for herself?"
"I _do_," replied AGRICULTURA. "And I charge this pair of Pernicious Pickles with planning--and to a large extent effecting--my Destruction! Hay, Hops, Cereals, Root-Crops, Fruits and Flowers--all ruined by these roystering rascals. They've done more incurable mischief in three supposed-to-be Summer Months than those much-maligned Boys over yonder did all the Winter. They've had it all their own way the Season through, ay, as much as though they'd nailed the weathercock to S.W., and knocked out the bottom of Aquarius's water-pot. And I call upon you, O Mother of the Winds, to pop them at once into their respective Bags, sit upon them till they are choked silent and still, and then hang them up to dry--if dry such watery imps _can_--for at least six months to come!"
Now whether the Mother of the Winds gave ear to the prayer of the poor Princess AGRICULTURA, and imposed upon the Two Winds the punishment they richly deserved, the sequel must show.
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