Punch, or the London Charivari | Page 2

it feels, But Linsey-Woolsey to my fancy Prettily appeals.
And when I find a lovely maid to settle all my cash on, She will be much too beautiful to need the gauds of fashion. No tinted tulle or taffeta, no silk or cr��pe-de-chine Will the maiden of my fancy wear--no chiffon, no sateen, No muslin, no embroidery, no lace of costly price, But she'll be clad in Dimity because it sounds so nice. I don't know what it looks like, I do not know its feel, But a dimpled maid in Dimity Was ever my ideal.
* * * * *
THE LAST MENU CARD.
"To-day is one of the great moments of history. Germany's last card is on the table. It is war to the knife. Either she starves Great Britain or Great Britain starves her."
_Mr. Curtin in "The Times."_
Mr. CURTIN has lost a great chance for talking of "War to the knife-and-fork." Possibly he was away in Germany at the time when this _jeu d'esprit_ was invented.
* * * * *
"The Canadian papers are unanimous that the German peace proposals are premature, and will be refused saskatoon."
Examiner (_Launceston, Tasmania_).
We had not heard before that Germany had asked for Saskatoon, but anyway we are glad she is not going to get it.
* * * * *
From a schoolgirl's essay:--
"The Reconnaissance was the time when people began to wake up ... Friar Jelicoe was a very great painter; he painted angles."
Probably an ancestor of the gallant gentleman who recently had a brush with the enemy.
* * * * *
TACTLESS TACTICS.
Were I a burglar in the dock With every chance of doing time, With Justice sitting like a rock To hear a record black with crime; If my conviction seemed a cert, Yet, by a show of late repentance, I thought I might, with luck, avert A simply crushing sentence;--
I should adopt, by use of art, A pensive air of new-born grace, In hope to melt the Bench's heart And mollify its awful face; I should not go and run amok, Nor in a fit of senseless fury Punch the judicial nose or chuck An inkpot at the jury.
So with the Hun: you might assume He would exert his homely wits To mitigate the heavy doom That else would break him all to bits; Yet he behaves as one possessed, Rampaging like a bull of Bashan, Which, as I think, is not the best Means of conciliation.
For when the wild beast, held and bound, Ceases to plunge and rave and snort, The Bench, I hope, will pass some sound Remarks on this contempt of court; The plea for mercy, urged too late, Should prove a negligible cipher, And when the sentence seals his fate He'll get at least a lifer.
O.S.
* * * * *
HEART-TO-HEART TALKS.
(_The KAISER and Count BERNSTORFF._)
The Kaiser (_concluding a tirade_). And so, in spite of my superhuman forbearance, this is what it has come to. Germany is smacked in the face in view of the whole world--yes, I repeat it, is smacked in the face, and by a nation which is not a nation at all, but a sweeping together of the worst elements in all the other nations, a country whose navy is ludicrous and whose army does not exist; and you, Count, have the audacity to come here into my presence and tell me that, with the careful instructions given to you by my Government and by myself, you were not able to prevent such an end to the negotiations? It is a thing that cannot be calmly contemplated. Even I, who have learnt perhaps more thoroughly than other men to govern my temper--even I feel strangely moved, for I know how deplorable will be the effect of this on our Allies and on the other neutral Powers. Our enemies, too, will be exalted by it and thus the War will be prolonged. No, Count, at such a moment one does not appear before one's Emperor with a smiling face.
_Count B._ God knows, your Majesty, that it is not I who have a smiling face. At such a moment there could be no reason for it. But your Majesty will remember, in justice to myself, that I have not ceased to warn your Majesty from the very beginning that unless something actual and definite was conceded to the feeling of the United States trouble would surely come. First there was the treatment of Belgium--
The Kaiser. Bah! Don't talk to me of Belgium and the Belgians. No more ungrateful race has ever infested the earth. Besides, did I not say that my heart bled for Louvain?
_Count B._ The Americans, your Majesty, had the bad taste not to believe you. It was in vain that I spread those gracious words of yours broadcast throughout the land. They only laughed at your Majesty.
The