Out on the path of the blazing ball that has hurtled a million years,
Where the uttermost light glows red by night in the clash of the angry spheres,
Where never a tear-drop dims the eye, and sorrows are stifled young,
And the Anglo-Indians snigger and sneer with the jest of a bitter tongue.
Where the tribesmen mock at the Bengalee and shiver their spears in vain,
And officers steep their souls chin-deep in brandy and dry champagne;
Where the Rudyard river runs, flecked with foam, far forth to the Kipling seas,
And the maker of man takes walks abroad with Pagan deities.
Where AZRAEL talks to the Graces Three, and the Muses Nine stand by,
And ask Greek riddles of BUDDHA, who never makes reply.
(Gentlemen all and ladies too as smart as a brand-new pin),
And nobody wonders how on earth so mixed a lot got in—
Here in the track of a thunderbolt from the nethernmost smithy hurled,
With the groan of an ancient passion rent from the wreck of a shattered world,
In the white-hot pincers of BAAL borne through cycles of agony,
Lit by the Pit's red wrath there came the Soul of a Sundered Flea.
And all that company started back; first AZRAEL grimly smiled,
The smile that an East-End Coster smiles, by a stout policeman riled;
And BUDDHA made no remark at all, but nodded his heavy head,
Like a boy who has eaten too much dessert, and wants to be put to bed.
And the Muses Nine, as they stood in line, they shuddered and turned to go.
"A joke's a joke, but I can't bear fleas," said CLIO to ERATO.
And the Graces, the good Conservative Three, shrank back to a spot remote,
And observed that they knew that this would come from letting the Masses vote.
Then AZRAEL spake—"On the Stygian lake I floated a half-sinned sin
On the crest of a cross-grained stickleback, that is caught with a crooked pin;
For a year and a day I watched it whirl, but never that sin could be
One-half so base as your gruesome face, O Soul of a Sundered Flea!
"What ill have ye done? Speak up, speak up!—for this is no place, I trow,
For the puling people on virtue fed. So speak, or prepare to go."
But the Flea flew free from the pincers' grip, and uttered a single phrase—
"I have lived on blood, as a gentleman should, and that is my claim to praise."
Then a shout of joy from the throng went forth; they built him a crystal throne,
And there in his pride, with none beside, he rules and he reigns alone.
And this is the tale which I here set down, as the story was told to me—
In excellent Rudyard-Kipling verse—the tale of the Sundered Flea.
ANTICIPATORY NEWS (from Our Own Court Tripping Newsman).—Sir ALGERNON BORTHWICK, Bart, M.P., will be raised to the Peerage with the title of Lord MORNINGPOST, of Penniwise, Seefarshire, N.B.
An Anti-lawn-tennis Lady considers that the argument against Croquet, as a game involving a bent back, and a narrowing of the chest, is merely "A very stoopit objection."
Hospitable Host. "HAVE C'GAR, OLD F'LLA?"
Languid Visitor. "NO—THANKS!"
H.H. "CIGARETTE THEN?"
His Visitor. "NO—THANKS. NEVAR SMOKE 'MEJATELY AFTER BREAKFAST."
H.H. "CAN'T REFUSE A TOOTHPICK, THEN, OLD F'LLA?"
The Royal Agricultural Society's Journal. A Society Journal of a peculiar character, of which this is the Third Series and Third Volume. It is noticeable for Lord CATHCART's appeal for the wild birds, which, as addressed to farmers and farm-labourers and armed ploughboys, may be summed up by an adaptation of the refrain of the remonstrance—so frequently urged by one of Lieutenant COLE's funny figures—"Can't you let the birds alone?" Then Mr. HASTING "On Vermin," which doesn't sound nice, though better than if the title were vice versâ,—is most interesting, especially where he tells us that "shrews are harmless." If so, why did SHAKSPEARE give us "The Taming of the Shrew" as such a feat? Professor BROWN writes about disease in sheep, of which paper Lord ARTHUR WEEDON DE GROSSMITH would be absolutely correct in observing, "What rot!" And, by the way, à propos of WEEDON, the Baron has to congratulate the Brothers GROSSMITH on their Diary of a Nobody, republished from Mr. Punch's pages, but with considerable additions. The Diary is very funny, not a page of it but affords matter for a good laugh; and yet the story is not without a touch of pathos, as it is impossible not to pity the steady, prim, old-fashioned jog-trot NOBODY, whose son, but just one remove above a regular 'ARRY, treats him with such unfilial rudeness.
It has been complained that the late General Election has not been amusing, and has given birth to little fun. Let those who feel this most acutely read Mr. R.C. LEHMANN's The "Billsbury Election (Leaves from the Diary of a Candidate)." He will tell you how Mr. RICHARD B. PATTLE contested Billsbury in the Constitutional Interest; how he "buttered up Billsbury like fun," was badgered by Billsbury, heckled by Billsbury, taxed, tithed and tormented by Billsbury, and eventually "chucked" by Billsbury, by the aggravatingly small majority of seventeen. Also how his "Mother bore up like a Trojan, and said she was prouder of me than ever." Just so.
I hold it true whate'er befall,
I wrote so, to the Morning Post;
'Tis better to have "run" and lost,
Than never to have run at all.
"Modern Types" and "Among the Amateurs" are well known to the readers of Punch. But lovers of C.S. CALVERLEY—that is to say, all but a very few ill-conditioned critical creatures—and of neat verse with a sting to it, should turn to p. 203 (A.C.S. v. C.S.C.), and read and enjoy the smart slating Mr. LEHMANN administers to tumid, tumultuous, thrasonic, turncoatist ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, for saying of the brilliant and well-beloved Author of Fly Leaves, &c., that he—forsooth!—is "monstrously overrated and preposterously overpraised"!!!
A Junior who will wear his gown straight, and not pretend that intense preoccupation over dummy briefs prevents him from knowing that it is off one shoulder.
A Judge who can resist the temptation to utter feeble witticisms, and to fall asleep.
A Witness who answers questions, and incidentally tells the truth.
A Jury who do not look supremely silly, and ridiculously self-conscious, when directly addressed or appealed to by Counsel; or one that really understands that the Judge's politeness is only another and subtle form of self-glorification.
A Q.C. who is not "eminent," who does not behave "nobly," and who can avoid the formula "I suggest to you," in cross-examination; or one that does not thunder from a lofty and inaccessible moral altitude so soon as a nervous Witness blunders or contradicts himself.
An Usher who does not try to induce the general public, especially the female portion thereof, to mistake him for the Lord Chancellor.
A Solicitor who does not strive to appear coram populo on terms of quite unnecessarily familiar intercourse with his leading Counsel.
An Articled Clerk who does not dress beyond his thirty shillings a-week, and think that the whole Court is lost in speculation as to the identity of that distinguished-looking young man.
An Associate who does not go into ecstasies of merriment over every joke or obiter dictum from the Bench.
Anybody who does not give loud expression to the opinion at the nearest bar when the Court rises, that he could have managed the case for either or both sides infinitely better than the Counsel engaged.
A Court-house whose atmosphere is pleasant and invigorating after the Court has sat for fifteen minutes.
(Anyone concerned who, on reading these remarks in print, will think that the cap can, by any scintilla of possibility, fit himself.)
WARRANTED TO "SWEEP THE COUNTRY," AND MAKE HIS MARK IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. (NATURALLY A FLUE-NT SPEAKER)!
DEAR MR. PUNCH,—I notice that a complaint has been made that those charming stories of wild life in the Far West, are out of date. Nay, more, that they are calculated to do a great deal of harm to a considerable amount of valuable property. On the other hand, the talented authors of the picturesque romances to which I have referred, insist that there is a great demand for these literary wares, and they would suffer much loss if they were to discontinue their production.
Could not the matter be compromised? We are less sensitive than our American cousins, and if the scene were changed from St. Francisco to some quiet watering-place on the Kentish Coast, our kindred beyond the seas ought to be satisfied. I do not pretend to be a master of the style of those who write Backwood sensations, but I think I can jot down a few lines to show what I mean. Beneath I give a specimen of the sort of thing that might take the place of stories revelling in such titles as the "Luck of Murder Camp," "Slack Bill's Banker," and "The Talk of Stab-in-the-Backman's Chasm."
The Miners who had been digging all day long the rough shingle for treasure-trove, had retired to their rudely constructed cabins. These rough huts were built of wood, and furnished with a seat on either side. There were two small windows let into the oaken walls—each of them not more than six inches square. They were absolutely free from furniture—save perhaps, a foot of cheap looking-glass, and here and there a wooden-peg used by the Miners for hanging up their slouch-hats, their red flannel-shirts, and their long leather-boots.
These huts were not unlike the other habitations in the wild Far West, save that they had this peculiarity—each hut was mounted on a huge springless framework, supported by four lumbering wooden wheels. By this arrangement the hut could be moved from place to place, sometimes to the fields, with their mines of undiscovered treasure; sometimes to the sea, burdened with legacies of the mighty deep.
CHARLEY was smoking a pipe, and thinking of that fair home in San Francisco, the very centre of civilisation, where the hotels were admirable, the stores well stocked, and house property at a premium.
"I did not discover a single ruby yesterday," he murmured, and then he looked at the wooden spade of a child—"I found only there a young 'un's toy. But it has softened my heart, and taught me that human nature is human nature."
He paused to wipe away with a sunburnt hand a furtive tear.
"CHARLEY, my lad," he exclaimed, "this is unmanly. What would DARE DEATH DICK or THUNDER TIM say to such a show of water?"
He took the spade, and was about to throw it with violence to the ground, when his better nature triumphed, and he placed it, almost with reverence, on the bench beside him.
He was disturbed by a tap on the outer door—the door that faced the sea.
"Who's there?" he shouted, as he held in one hand a revolver, and in the other a bowie-knife of the usual fashion.
"Are you ready?"
It was a gruff voice, and yet there was something feminine about it. CHARLEY had never feared to meet a woman yet, and he did not now shrink from the encounter. However his training had made him cautious. It might be a trap of the bloodthirsty Indians—those Children of Nature who were known to indulge in any cruel subterfuge to secure the white men as their prey.
"Are you ready?" was repeated in the same gruff voice, but now the tone was one of entreaty. The speaker seemed to be imploring for a reply.
CHARLEY hesitated no longer. He put down the bowie-knife, and still holding the revolver, opened the door.
He started back! Yes, it was a woman who confronted him. But such a woman! Her face was weather-beaten and sunburnt. Her hair was grey, and there were pieces of sea-weed in the shapeless mass that once may have been called a bonnet. She was wearing a heavy serge dress that was dripping with the sea. On her huge feet were old boots sodden with sand and wet. She might have been of any age, from fifty upwards.
She gazed at CHARLEY with an uncanny smile, and extended her arms towards him. Then she spoke in the same gruff tone,
"Come to your MARTHA!"
And CHARLEY knew he had met a chum!
There, something like the above might do. The woods in the neighbourhood of Herne Bay are just the places for adventure, and, with thought, a good deal might be managed with the Reculvers.
And now, Mr. Punch, I have done.
Monday.—Miners of the Great Hagglenaggle Fields ask for increase of wages, emphasising their demand by firing off revolvers and brandishing bowie-knives.
Tuesday.—Masters of the Great Hagglenaggle Fields refuse to treat with Miners, and entrench themselves behind ironclad back gardens. They also send for a force of PATTERSON's Mercenary Chuckers-out. Fighting imminent.
Wednesday.—Appearance of PATTERSON's Mercenary Chuckers out. They are met by Miners with discharges of Gattling guns and land torpedoes.
Thursday.—The two armies face to face. Both sides fire away, using up all their ammunition. End of the day's contest, no balance on either side. Great success of the new General Interment Company. Shares at thirty premium.
Friday.—Reinforcements for both sides. A general engagement considered imminent. In the meanwhile, pour passer le temps, skirmishes and slaughter of thousands.
Saturday.—First-class, regular all-round battle. A large force arrived to fight the Miners, Gatlings and Krupps blaze away without intermission. Losses on both sides pretty considerable.
Sunday.—Conversion of the Great Hagglenaggle Fields into a cemetery. Great rise in shares on allotment. Ten acres of booking in advance!
Yes! I'm off for my holiday. Forty odd pieces
Of luggage, three cabs, and a van, and a 'bus too.
Without counting loose wraps, and umbrellas in creases,
And sweets that my darlings are sucking with gusto.
Yes! I'm off for my holiday—wife in hysterics,
Since nowhere on earth can her poodle be found;
And the nurses and children—ANNES, LILIANS, ERICS—
All screaming, and fussing, and fuming around!
Yes! I'm off for my holiday—Tyneside, or Deeside,
Or Lakes, or that Switzerland English, Hind Head,
Or the thousand monotonies known as "The Seaside"—
Ask not whither my fugitive footsteps are led.
For whatever the place, it is ever the same thing;
Poor Paterfamilias always must suffer.
A dyspeptic, a costly, a lame and a tame thing
Is Holiday-time for a family buffer.
Yes! I'm off for my holiday—where I won't mention;
They are pulling the blinds of my drawing-room down:
But next year—if I live—it's my solemn intention
To stay, upon business, en garçon, in Town.
FAIR PROSPECTS OF FINE WEATHER.—No rain on St. Swithin's, and last week the County of Inverness discarded its MACKINTOSH.
NOTICE.—Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.