Public-domain ebook
by Various
Language: en389 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Punch·Humour·British Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #15049.
The opening · free to read
Across the wind-blown bridges, O look, lugubrious Night! She comes, the red-haired beauty Illumined by gaslight! By London's dim gaslight! So hush, ye cads, your roar! Behind her plumes are waving Her oil'd fringe flaps before.
O 'ARRIET, Cockney sister, Your face is writhed with jeers; How awful is the angle Of those protuberant ears! Those red, protuberant ears! And your splay feet--O lor!!! My loud, my Cockney sister, Where oil'd fringe flops before!
Ah, 'ARRIET! gracious 'eavens, How your greased locks do glow! I swoon! The "hodoration" (I heard you call it so) Sickens my senses so; 'Tis "Citronel"--no more, That scents, like a cheap barber's, That oil'd fringe hung before.
'ARRIET, my knowing darling, Your eyes a cross-watch keep, You're togged in shop-girl's fashion, Your cloak is bugled deep, Black-bugled broad and deep, With buttons dappled o'er, Good gr-racious! how it's grown, too-- That oil'd fringe flopped before!
That "bang" is awfully trying, That odour maddens me. By Jingo! you've been dyeing Those rufous locks, I see, Those sandy locks, I see, They're darker than of yore. Avaunt! I'd be forgetting That oil'd fringe flopped before.
Every question, whatever they ax is, Will in its THURN be answered by TAXIS. TAXIS and THURN, for a win you'll of course back, The pick of the stable, the trainer VON ORSBACH.
We wish him a continuance of the successes which from his list this Equestrian Military Tutor--he can't he a "coach" as he is an ORSBACH--has already obtained. It's a German name, but it sounds more like 'Orsetrian (!)
CUI BONO?--"It is a mistake," quoth The World last week, "to suppose that Mr. GLADSTONE complacently regards Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT as his '_Alter Ego_.'" Mr. G. being the "_Ego_" it is not very likely that Sir WILLIAM V. HARCOURT is likely to "alter" any of his Leader's plans. Still an "_Alter Ego_" is very useful whenever Mr. GLADSTONE may want to "wink The Other I."
Yes, there I stood beside my wife, And called it--whilst the mob cheered wildly-- "The proudest moment of my life," Which it was not, to put it mildly.
Heavens, how they cheered! Up went their caps, To see their Member safely seated; Who in his inmost soul, perhaps, Had almost wished himself defeated.
The girls are pleased. And Mrs. T., Has fairy visions of a handle To grace the name she shares with me; But is the game quite worth the candle?
Six years of unremitting work, Of flower-shows, bazaars, and speeches, Of sturdy mendicants who lurk In wait to act as sturdy leeches.
The faddists--Anti-This-and-That-- Blue-spectacled "One Vote, One Person"-- Extract a promise, prompt and pat, The while their heads you hurl a curse on.
And in return? The dull debate, The dreary unimportant question, The pressure of affairs of State, A muddled brain, a lost digestion.
Six years of it. I cannot stand At any cost another bout of it; But, given away on every hand, I don't quite see how to get out of it.
Ah, happy thought! My seat is safe, And so 'mid general adulation, I'll rescue some poor party waif By Chiltern Hundreds resignation.
The world will quickly roar applause, Of martyrs I shall be the latest; But I'm the party and the cause To whom the service will be greatest!
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