ing for the first time_). I say, we'll 'ook it now,
eh?

_Mr. H._ (_gloomily accepting the situation_). Yes, we'd better 'ook
it.

[_They "'ook it" accordingly, and Miss FLO and Miss POLLY,
returning later, find, rather to their surprise, that their
victim has departed, and their chairs are filled by blandly
unconscious strangers. However, both young ladies declare that
it is "a good riddance," and they thought "that ERNIE 'ORKINS
never meant to go,"-- which seems amply to console them for
having slightly overrated their powers of fascination._

* * * * *

THE GROAN OF THE "GROWLER."

[_The British "Cabby," hearing of the new Parisian plan of
regulating Cab-fares by distance, which is to be shown by
an automatic apparatus, venteth his feelings of dismay and
disgust in anticipation of the application of the new-fangled
System nearer home._]

A Autumn-attic happaratus
For measuring off our blooming fares!
Oh, hang it all! They slang and slate us;
They say we crawls, and cheats, and swears.
And we surwives the sneering slaters,
Wot tries our games to circumvent,
But treating us like Try-yer-weighters,
Or chockerlate, or stamps, or scent!
Upon my soul the stingy dodgers
Did ought to be shut up. They're wuss
Than Mrs. JACKERMETTY PRODGERS,
Who earned the 'onest Cabman's cuss.
It's sickening! Ah, I tell yer wot, Sir,
Next they'll stick hup--oh, you may smile--
This:--"Drop a shilling in the slot. Sir,
And the Cab goes for just two mile!"
Beastly! I ain't no blessed babby,
Thus to be measured off like tape.
Yah! Make a autumn-attic Cabby,
With clock-work whip and a tin cape.
May as well, while you're on the job, Sir.
And then--may rust upset yer works!
The poor man of his beer they'd rob, Sir,
Who'd rob poor Cabby of his perks!

[Illustration: A CONTENTED MIND.

_Angelina_. "INCOMES UNDER L150 A YEAR ARE EXEMPT FROM INCOME-TAX.
ISN'T IT LUCKY, DARLING? WE JUST MISS IT BY FIVE POUNDS!"]

* * * * *

TO A FEATHER-HEADED POET.

Oh, mountainous mouther of molehills, weak wielder of terrors outworn,
Discharger of sulphurous salvoes, effetely ferocious in scorn,
Shrill shrieker and sesquipedalian, befoamed and befumed and immense
With the words that are wind on an ocean, whose depth is unfathomed of sense,
Red fury that