Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891

"CORRECT CARD, GENTS!"--"Wanted a Map of London" was the heading of a letter in the Times last Thursday. No, Sir! that's not what is wanted. There are hundreds of 'em, specially seductive pocket ones, with just the very streets that one wants to discover as short cuts to great centres carefully omitted. What is wanted is a correct map of London, divided into pocketable sections, portable, foldable, durable, on canvas,--but if imperfect, as so many of these small pocket catch-shilling ones are just now, although professedly brought up to date '91, they are worse than useless, and to purchase one is a waste of time, temper and money. We could mention an attractive-looking little map--which, but no-- Publishers and public are hereby cautioned! N.B.--Test well your pocket map through a magnifying glass before buying. Experto crede!

Oh, Oyster mine! Oh, Oyster mine! You're still as exquisitely nice; With perfect pearly tints you shine, But you are such an awful price. The lemon and the fresh cayenne, Brown bread and butter and the stout Are here, and just the same, but then What if I have to leave you out?

What wonder that my spirits droop, That life can bring me no delight, When I must give up oyster soup, So softly delicately white. The curry powder stands anear, The scallop shells, but what care I-- You're so abominably dear, O Oyster! that I cannot buy.

With sad imaginative flights, I think upon the days of yore; Like TICKLER, on Ambrosian nights, I have consumed them by the score. And still, whenever you appeared, My pride it was to use you well; I let the juice play round your beard, And always on the hollow shell.

I placed you in the fair lark-pie. With steak and kidneys too, of course; Your ancestors were glad to die, So well I made the oyster sauce. I had you stewed and featly fried, And dipped in batter--think of that; And, as a pleasant change, I've tried You, skewered in rows, with bacon-fat.

"Where art thou, ALICE?" cried the bard. "Where art thou, Oyster?" I exclaim. It really is extremely hard, To know thee nothing but a name. For this is surely torment worse Than DANTE heaped upon his dead;-- To find thee quite beyond my purse, And so go oysterless to bed.

A PROPOS OF THE SECRETARY FOR WAR'S ROSEATE AFTER--DINNER SPEECH (on the entirely satisfactory state of the Army generally).--(STAN-)"HOPE told a flattering tale."

_Secretarial Pangloss sings:_--

Late, upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, tired but cheery, Over many an optimistic record of War Office lore; Whilst I worked, assorting, mapping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone rudely rapping, rapping at my Office-door. "Some late messenger," I muttered, "tapping at my Office-door-- Only this, but it's a bore."

I remember--being sober--it was in the chill October, Light from the electric globe or horseshoe lighted wall and floor; Also that it was the morrow of the Holborn Banquet; sorrow From the Blue Books croakers borrow--sorrow for the days of yore, For the days when "_Rule Britannia_" sounded far o'er sea and shore. Ah! it must have been a bore!

But on that let's draw the curtain. I am simply cock-sure--certain That "our splendid little Army" never was so fine before. It will take a lot of beating! Such remarks I keep repeating; They come handy--after eating, and are always sure to score-- Dash that rapping chap entreating entrance at my Office-door! It is an infernal bore!

Presently I grew more placid (Optimists should not be acid.) "Come in!" I exclaimed--"con_found_ you! Pray stand drumming there no more." But the donkey still kept tapping. "Dolt!" I muttered, sharply snapping, "Why the deuce do you come rapping, rapping at my Office-door? Yet not 'enter' when you're told to?"--here I opened wide the door-- Darkness there, and nothing more.

Open next I flung the shutter, when, with a prodigious flutter, In there stepped a bumptious Raven, black as any blackamoor. Not the least obeisance made he, not a moment stopped or stayed he, But with scornful look, though shady, perched above my Office-door, Perched upon BRITANNIA's bust that stood above my Office-door-- Perched, and sat, and seemed to snore.

"Well," I said, sardonic smiling, "this is really rather riling; "It comports not with decorum such as the War Office bore In old days stiff and clean-shaven. Dub me a Gladstonian craven If I ever saw a Raven at the W.O. before. Tell me what your blessed name is. '_Rule Britannia_' held of yore," Quoth the bird, "'Tis so no more!"

Much I marvelled this sophistic fowl to utter pessimistic Fustian, which so little meaning--little relevancy bore To the rule of me and SOLLY; but, although it may sound folly, This strange fowl a strange resemblance to "Our Only General" wore, To the W-LS-L-Y whose pretensions to sound military lore Are becoming quite a bore.

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that much-peeled bust, spake only Of our Army as a makeshift, small, ill-manned, and precious poor. Drat the pessimistic bird!--he grumbled of "the hurdy-gurdy Marching-past side of a soldier's life in peace." "We've fought before, Winning battles with boy-troops," I cried, "We'll do as we before--" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"

"Nonsense!" said I. "After dinner at the Holborn, as a winner Spake I in the Pangloss spirit to the taxpayers, (Don't snore!) Told them our recruits--who'll master e'en unmerciful disaster, Come in fast and come in faster, quite as good as those of yore,"-- "Flattering tales of (Stan) Hope!" cried the bird, whose dismal dirges bore, One dark burden--"Nevermore!"

"Hang it, Raven, this is riling!" cried I. "Stop your rude reviling!" Then I wheeled my office-chair in front of bird and bust and door; And upon its cushion sinking, "I," I said, "will smash like winking This impeachment you are bringing, O you ominous bird of yore, O you grim, ungainly, ghastly, grumbling, gruesome feathered bore!" Croaked the Raven, "You I'll floor."

Then methought the bird looked denser, and his cheek became immenser. And he twaddled of VON MOLTKE, and his German Army Corps; "Flattering the tax-payers' vanity," and much similar insanity, In a style that lacked urbanity, till the thing became a bore. "Oh, get out of it!" I cried; "our little Army yet will score." Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"

"Prophet!" said I, "of all evil, that we're 'going to the devil' Has been the old croaker's gospel for a century, and more. Red-gilled Colonels this have chaunted in BRITTANIA's ears undaunted, By their ghosts you must he haunted. Take a Blue-pill, I implore! When our Army meets the foe it's bound to lick him as of yore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!

"Prophet!" said I, "that's uncivil. You may go to--well, the devil! That Establishments are 'short,' and 'standards' lowered o'er and o'er. That mere 'weeds,' with chests of maiden, cannot march with knapsack laden; That the heat of sultry Aden, or the cold of Labrador, Such can't stand, may be the truth; but keep it dark, bird, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"

"Then excuse me, we'll be parting, doleful fowl," I cried, upstarting; "Get thee back to--the Red River, or the Nile's sand-cumbered shore! Leave no 'Magazine' as token of the twaddle you have spoken. What? BRITANNIA stoney-broken? Quit her bust above my door. Take thy hook from the War Office; take thy beak from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"

And the Raven still is sitting, croaking statements most unfitting, On BRITANNIA's much-peeled bust that's placed above my Office-door, And if Pangloss, e'en in seeming, lent an ear to his dark dreaming, Useless were official scheming, grants of millions by the score, For my soul were like the shadow that he casts upon the floor, Dark and dismal evermore!

["The range of our inquiry was intended to include the whole migratory range for seals.... Our movements were kept most secret."--_Sir George Baden-Powell on the Work of the Behring Sea Commission_.]

We came, we saw, we--held our tongues (myself--BADEN-POWELL--and Mr. DAWSON.) We popped on each seal-island "unbeknownst," and what we discovered we held our jaws on. We'd five hundred interviews within three months, which I think "cuts the record" in interviewing, Corresponded with 'Frisco, Japan, and Russia; so I hope you'll allow we've been "up and doing." (Not up and saying, be't well understood). As TUPPER (the Honourable C.H., Minister Of Fisheries) said, in the style of his namesake, "The fool imagines all Silence is sinister, "But the wise man knows that it's often dexterous." Be sure no inquisitive shyness or bounce'll Make us "too previous" with our Report, which goes first to the QUEEN and the Privy Council. Some bigwig's motto is, "Say and Seal," but as TUPPER remarked a forefinger laying To the dexter side of a fine proboscis, "Our motto at present is, Seal without saying!"

The Dingy Italian (suddenly discovering CULCHARD's nationality). Ecco, siete Inglese! Lat us spika Ingelis, I onnerstan' 'im to ze bottom-side. (Laboriously, to CULCHARD, who tries to conceal his chagrin.) 'Ow menni time you employ to go since Coire at here? (C. nods with vague encouragement.) Vich manners of vezzer you vere possess troo your travels--mosh ommerella? (C.'s eyes grow vacant.) Ha, I tink it vood! Zis day ze vicket root sall 'ave plenti 'orse to pull, &c., &c. (Here PODBURY comes up, and puts some rugs the coupe of the diligence.) You sit at ze beginning-end, hey? better, you tink, zan ze mizzle? I too, zen, sall ride at ze front--we vill spika Ingelis, altro!