Punch, or the London Charivari | Page 6

most awfully kind of you. I hope you won't think me ungrateful, but I'm afraid I can't help you at all. There's nothing--nothing. Margery--well, you see, Margery's perfect.' I was so annoyed with him that I came away without saying another word. And now I'm no further than I was before as regards Margery. Mortals really are very stupid. It's most vexing."
She paused a minute, then suddenly she looked up and flashed a smile at me. "All the same it was rather darling of him, wasn't it?" she said.
I nodded. "I wonder ...," I began.
"Yes?" interjected the Queen eagerly.
"... I wonder whether you could give her that, just that for always?"
"What do you mean?" said the Queen.
"I mean," I said slowly, "the gift of remaining perfect for ever in his eyes."
The Queen looked at me thoughtfully. "He'll think I'm not giving her anything," she objected.
"Never mind," I said, "she'll know."
The Queen nodded. "Yes," she said meditatively, "rather nice--rather nice. Thank you very much. I'll think about it. Good-bye." She was gone.
R.F.
* * * * *
"On Monday evening an employee of the ---- Railway Loco. Department dislocated his jaw while yawning."--_Local Paper._
It is expected that the company will disclaim liability for the accident, on the ground that he was yawning in his own time.
* * * * *
NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.
THE CENTIPEDE.
The centipede is not quite nice; He lives in idleness and vice; He has a hundred legs; He also has a hundred wives, And each of these, if she survives, Has just a hundred eggs; And that's the reason if you pick Up any boulder, stone or brick You nearly always find A swarm of centipedes concealed; They scatter far across the field, But one remains behind. And you may reckon then, my son, That not alone that luckless one Lies pitiful and torn, But millions more of either sex-- 100 multiplied by x-- Will never now be born. I daresay it will make you sick, But so does all Arithmetic.
The gardener says, I ought to add, The centipede is not so bad; He rather likes the brutes. The millipede is what he loathes; He uses fierce bucolic oaths Because it eats his roots; And every gardener is agreed That, if you see a centipede Conversing with a milli--, On one of them you drop a stone, The other one you leave alone-- I think that's rather silly. They may be right, but what I say Is, "Can one stand about all day And count the creature's legs?" It has too many, any way, And any moment it may lay Another hundred eggs; So if I see a thing like this (1) I murmur, "Without prejudice," And knock it on the head; And if I see a thing like that (2) I take a brick and squash it flat; In either case it's dead.
A.P.H.
(1) and (2). There ought to be two pictures here, one with a hundred legs and the other with about a thousand. I have tried several artists, but most of them couldn't even get a hundred on to the page, and those who did always had more legs on one side than the other, which is quite wrong. So I have had to dispense with the pictures.
* * * * *
ANOTHER IMPENDING APOLOGY.
"Ainsi parla l'éditeur du Daily Herald. Lord Lansbury a toujours été l'enfant chéri et terrible du parti travailliste anglais."--_Gazette de Lausanne._
* * * * *
"WANTED.
Small nicely furnished house, nice locality, for nearly married couple, from August 1st."--_Johannesburg Star._
We trust that no one encouraged them with accommodation.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE MAKING OF A REFORMER.
SHOWING THE INFECTIOUS INFLUENCE OF ORATORY.]
* * * * *
THE MUDFORD BLIGHT.
Mary settled her shoulders against the mantel-piece, slid her hands into her pockets and looked down at her mother with faint apprehension in her eyes.
"I want," she remarked, "to go to London."
Mrs. Martin rustled the newspaper uneasily to an accompanying glitter of diamond rings. Mary's direct action slightly discomposed her, but she replied amiably. "Well, dear, your Aunt Laura has just asked you to Wimbledon for a fortnight in the Autumn."
Mary did not move. "I want," she continued abstractedly, "to live in London."
Mrs. Martin glanced up at her daughter as if discrediting the authorship of this remark. "I don't know what you are thinking of, child," she said tartly, "but you appear to me to be talking nonsense. Your father and I have no idea of leaving Mudford at present."
"I want," Mary went on in the even tone of one hypnotised by a foregone conclusion, "to go and live with Jennifer and write--things."
Mrs. Martin's gesture as she rose expressed as much horror as was consistent with majesty.
"My dear Mary," she said coldly, "let me dispose of your outrageous suggestion before it goes any further. You appear to imagine that