Punch, or The London Charivari | Page 4

even know if there is another hotel.
_Podb._ I don't care. I can find a pot-house somewhere, I daresay.
_The Pale-haired Lady_ (_in excellent English, to PODBURY as he passes out_). Pardon me, you will find close to the Bahnhof a very goot hotel--the Wurtemburger.
[_PODBURY thanks her and alights in some confusion; the Lady sinks back, smiling_.
_Culch._ (_annoyed_). She must have understood every word we said! Are you in earnest over this? (PODBURY nods grimly.) Well, you'll soon get tired of your own society, I warn you.
_Podb._ Thanks, we shall see.
[_He saunters off with his bag: CULCHARD shrugs his shoulders, and goes in search of the Bayrischer-Hof Porter, to whom he entrusts his luggage tickets, and takes his seat in the omnibus alone._
* * * * *
"ANGELS AND MINISTERS OF GRACE!"
["The London Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian hears that certain ungallant Members of Parliament are threatening at the beginning of next Session to make a formal protest against the wholesale admission of ladies to the precincts of the House."]
Ungallant! Vastly fine! But when they crowd The terrace seats, elbow us in the lobbies, Chatter and laugh, and care no more about (Elderly) senators than boys or bobbies; Why then, Sir, all M.P.'s of nerve and nous Will say that, though we love the babbling beauties, The swarming of these "Angels in the House," Will simply play the devil with its duties!
[Illustration: "NOS ET MUTAMUR IN ILLIS!"
(_INTERNATIONAL FELINE AMENITIES._)
Fair French Republican. "SO YOU 'AVE RETURN FROM PARIS? HOW DID YOU LIKE IT?"
Lady Godiva. "OH, _PAS DE TOUT_--IT IS SO ALTERED FOR THE WORSE! FOR I CAN REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS IN THE DEAR OLD DAYS OF THE EMPIRE!"
Fair French Republican. "AH, MILADI, IS IT NOT POSSIBLE ZAT PARIS MAY FIND YOU A LITTLE BIT ALTERED TOO!"]
* * * * *
STORICULES.
IV.--A REVIEWER'S CONFESSION.
I am extremely fond of sitting and looking on; but I do not care about taking part in anything. There are some people who cannot even witness a cab accident without wanting to be the horse or the man who is sitting on the horse's head. They walk round the prostrate animal and give advice; and if they are allowed to help in any way, they are quite happy. If such people watch a game of any sort, they always wish they were taking part in it. I once went to a cricket-ground to eat luncheon, and I went with an enthusiast of this kind. We noticed that his attention seemed distracted, that he only replied in monosyllables when we spoke to him, and that there was something on his mind. "I would give," he exclaimed, at last--and it was the only remark that he had volunteered for half-an-hour--"I would give a year of my life for twenty minutes with that bowling." He was evidently deeply affected. "Why don't they take him off?" he moaned. There were tears in his eyes. I do not quite understand that feeling. I can watch absolutely anything, but I never want to do more. I was not made to undertake principal parts--I can witness amateur theatricals without wishing to be the prompter. I review novels, but I do not write them.
The other day I watched a game of tennis. I had placed the lounge-chair in a safe and shady position. I had got a paper-knife and the third volume with me. The cat had followed me out of the library, and sat down in a convenient position so that I could scratch it gently behind the ear if I wanted to. I was smoking a pipe that had just reached the right stage of maturity, and, in some indefinable way, made life seem richer and better. Everything was well arranged for the watching of tennis.
There were two players--BILL, a young son of the house, whom I knew intimately, and TOMMY, a boy of the same age, who had just come up from the Rectory. I had not seen TOMMY before. He was a nice-looking little boy, and wore a black necktie in the collar of his silk tennis-shirt. BILL is not good-looking; he is red and freckled, and grins vastly. He was wearing rather unclean flannels, and did not look quite so refined and delicate as TOMMY. I compared the two boys, and thought that I preferred BILL. In the first game of the set, BILL, who plays wonderfully well, won easily; after that, my attention got fixed on that third volume. I turned down a corner of the page whenever I came across anything that was at all conventional. I was reading the book for review, and my notice of it was to appear in The Scalpel on the following Saturday. It was, on the whole, a capital novel, but it was by an author who had been, I thought, more successful than was good