_Dobbin_! Don't halt for this hullaballoo--
Gee up! and go steady, now there's a good chap.
What, the same plaguy Pig! Nay, by Jove, _there are two!_
And they're fighting each other, these porkers perverse,
In the gap we must pass! Oh! this grows worse and worse!

[_Whips up Dobbin._

* * * * *

KOCH SURE!

SCENE--_A PLACE OF MEETING. ENTER BROWN AND JONES. THEY SALUTE ONE
ANOTHER_.

_Brown_ (_excitedly_). Have you heard the good news?

_Jones_ (_stolidly_). What good news?

_Brown_. That Dr. KOCH has at length revealed his secret?

_Jones_ (_startled_). No, has he! Dear me! And that I should have
missed so pleasant a piece of intelligence! And so he has told an
anxiously-expectant world the cause of his success! Can _you_ explain
the matter to me?

_Brown_ (_cheerfully_). With the assistance of the Public Press, to be
sure I can. See here, I will give you the solution to the problem, as
told by the Journals, "without puzzling technicalities."

_Jones_. I hang upon your words with an impatience that
politeness--the outcome of civilisation--alone renders endurable.

_Brown_. Then you must know that Dr. KOCH has discovered that the
remedy for tuberculosis consists of a glycerine extract of a pure
cultivation of tubercle bacilli, the local effect of which, when
injected into a healthy guinea-pig, produces a nodule found at the
point of inoculation, which, when a second puncture is perpetrated,
causes what may be called the bacillary fluid to be brought into the
current of its circulation, so that the infected tissue may react upon
the agent which it had previously been able to resist. I am not quite
sure that I have got the _exact_ words, but that's the idea. Simple,
isn't it?

_Jones_. Very! [_Exeunt severally._

* * * * *

[Illustration: "WORSE THAN EVER!"

FARMER SMITH. "TUT-T-T! _TWO OF 'EM!_ BAD ENOUGH WHEN THERE WAS ONLY
ONE!!"]

* * * * *

DOMESTIC MELODIES.

(_BY SANCHO PRESTON PANZA._)

WINTER BATH-SONG.

For weeks the sun each morn arose
As 'tis his nature to,
But little difference he made
Sopp'd by the fog's asthmatic shade;
From day's beginning till its close
The day no brighter grew.
Above the sheets, the sleeper's nose
Peep'd shyly, as afraid,
While 'neath the dark and draughty flue
The burnt-out cinders meanly strew
The hearth, where now no f