l be also thy fate.
There is _Punch_ looking on, he'll approve!" And she jest set 'er dogs
on me, straight!
"Way-oh! Miss DIANNER!" I yells. "No offence! Don't be 'ard on a bloke!
Beg yer pardon, I'm sure!" Here a hound nipped my calf like a vice,
and--I woke.

Leastways, I persoom it _wos_ waking, if 'tother was sleep and a dream,
But I feel a bit moon-struck, dear boy. Spooks abound, and things ain't
what they seem.
_Mister Punch_ sez, "it served me quite right." Well, next time
correspondence he'd carry
With satterlites, spesh'ly the Moon, he had better not drop upon 'ARRY.

"Poor fellow, I pity him," said _Mr. Punch_ to Father TIME, as
the pair passed away from the Lunar precincts together, bowing
courteously, and a little apologetically, to 'ARRY's late hostess,
who called off her dogs, and affably responded to their parting
salutation. "Fact is," pursued the Sage, "my young friend 'ARRY,
though smart and _fin de siecle_, in his way, is a little of 'the
earth, earthy,' and lacks both the adventurousness and the tact of
an Ixion."

"I presume," said the Scythe-bearer, "our inter-planetary
peregrinations are now pretty nearly at an end--for this time?"

"We have yet one more visit to pay," said _Mr. Punch_.

At this moment, as the space-pervading trio fleeted forward, a strange
unusual effulgence grew to the eastward, and began to bathe them in
golden light. Miraculously metamorphic was its action upon the aerial
travellers. _Mr. Punch_ flung aside his hat and his "Immensikoff,"
and appeared as the Apollo-like personage he really is. TOBY's wings
expanded, and his pace mended. As for "Old Father TIME" himself, the
combined influence of the regenerating philtre in _Faust_, and the
fire-bath in _She_, could not more completely have transmogrified
him. His face brightened with youthfulness, his solitary forelock
bushed out into a wavy and hyacinthine hirsute crop, his ancient and
magician-like garments fell from him, his plumes expanded, until he
looked more like "the herald Mercury" than old Edax Rerum.

Then they swung, as on airy _trapeze_, or on wings of the thunder-bird
strong,
With the sound in their ears of the voice of the starry and sisterly
throng.
Did the orbs of splendiferous Sol give a wink as they ranged into
reach?
Was his genial mouth all alight with the flame of the friendliest
speech?
Hey, Presto! Great Scott! Transform