(_By a Fiance a la Mode._)
[Illustration]
["... The women they might have married--the girls whom they
danced with when they were youths--have grown too old for our
middle-aged suitors."--_Standard._]
I'm just engaged: I'm forty-five--
Our modern prime for wedded blisses.
The age _par excellence_ to wive
With blooming _fin-de-siecle_ Misses;
I'm very happy; so's my Love;
I don't regret that long I've tarried;--
And yet I can't help thinking of
The damozels I might have married.
Yes; there was JANET, slim and pert;
I took her in last night to dinner,
And cannot honestly assert
That years conspire to make her thinner;
Yet once we cooed o'er tea and buns;
She quite forgets how on we carried,
Nor owns, with undergraduate sons,
That _she_ was one I might have married.
And LILIAN, emanation soft,
Fair widow of the latter Sixties,
Ideal of the faith that oft
With earliest homage intermixt is;
I used to dream her, oh! so young;
She's wrinkled now and bent and arid;
It almost desecrates my tongue,
But _she_ was one I might have married.
A truce to recollection sore;
I'm still considered smart and youthful;
And trusting, darling ELINOR
Assures me so with passion truthful;
In my fond eyes she'll wither ne'er,
Because--the fact can scarce be parried--
I shan't survive to see her share
The fate of those I might have married!
Mixed.
I'm Charge d'Affaires--"Siam?" _Oui._
Pour England je don't care one "d."
Je prig le Mekong,
Si je keep it not long--
They call me "Brigand!"--_Je le suis._
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MIND YOUR PEASE AND Q.'S.--_Q._ "Why did Sir DONALD CURRIE pair with
Sir JOSEPH PEASE?"--No; we are not going to say anything about "PEASE
and CURRIE" going together--we scorn getting a rice out of you that
way--besides, this dish has been overdone. But the simple answer is,
that as Sir DONALD couldn't get any other pair this one was a "_Pease
aller_." [We're better now. "Pax!"]
* * * * *