s very old." This has the same
effect on a conundrum-maker as the most brilliant repartee.

Unless it leads him to come to you three times a day ever afterwards,
with fresh ones, all hot as it were from the baker's, and ask you
perpetually, "Well, is _this_ old?"

[Illustration: JO MILLER, (_Bringing more Material for Joke_).]

CHAPTER XIII.

MUSIC--MEDFORD--MILBURD'S SONG--CONSEQUENCE--OPINIONS--NOTE--
COMPLIMENTS--EPIGRAM--THE DAMP FIREWORK.

Milburd asks Medford to accompany him in a "little thing of his own."
The ladies have taken their turn at the piano, and Medford himself has
favoured us with half an hour's worth of his unpublished compositions.
Milburd announces his song as "A WAITING GAME."

(_Suggested by "A Dreary Lot is Mine."_)

A waiting game is mine,
Fair maid,
A waiting game is mine;
One day I shall not be afraid
To ask, then hear "I'm thine!"
And when that word I've spoo-o-ken,
Ere yet I am quite grey,
Ne'er will it, dear, be bro-o-o-ken
For ever and a day!

Mrs. Boodels wants to know if he won't kindly sing it to her through her
ear-trumpet. He promises to do so, one day when they are alone.

SECOND VERSE.

A waiting game is mine, fair maid,
A waiting game is mine,
I'll stay until my debts are paid,
The contract _then_ I'll sign.
Unless you've fifty thousand pounds,
To bring me as a dower,
If so .... those are sufficient grounds
For wedding--now--this hour.

Nobody asks him to sing again. Mrs. Frimmely says, "She only cares for
French songs. English comic songs," she adds, "are _so vulgar_." Settler
for Milburd. Glad of it.

After this Milburd says he's got another; a better one.

We say, sing it to-morrow.

_Happy Thought (expressed in a complimentary manner)._--A good song,
like yours, is better for keeping.

_Note to Myself._

The age for compliments is gone. The courtly and polished Abbe, who
would have said the above epigrammatically when it would have been
considered remarkably witty, has passed away. No one believes in
compliment. It has no currency, except done in a most commonplace way.
But the epigrammatic compliment, the well-prepared impromptu, the
careful rehearsed inspiration, is out of date. Now-a-days there are no
wits, and no appreciation of The Wits. Conversation is damped by a
bon-mot. An awful silence