[Illustration: _Illustrious President._ "NOW, MY LAD, SORRY TO
INCONVENIENCE YOU, BUT--HEM--HA--YOU MUST REALLY GO--SOMEWHERE ELSE!"]
SOME prate of patriotism, and some of cheap defence,
But to the high official mind that's all absurd pretence;
For of all the joys of snubbing, there's none to it _so_ dear,
As to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!
A patriotic Laureate may bid the Rifles form,
And Citizens may look to them for safety in War's storm;
But Secretaries, Dooks, and such at this delight to jeer,
And to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!
A semi-swell he may be, but he may be a mere clerk,
And he's an interloper, and to snub him is a lark.
Sometimes he licks the Regulars, and so our duty's clear,
'Tis to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!
He hankers for an increase in his Capitation Grant,
It's like his precious impudence, and have the lift he shan't.
What, make it easier for him to run us close? No fear!
We'll snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!
He has a fad for Wimbledon, but that is just a whim,
And as eviction's all the go, we'll try it upon _him_.
_He_'s not an Irish tenant, so no one will interfere,
When once more we snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!
His targets and his tents and things are nuisances all round,
As Jerry-Builders, Dooks, and other Toffs have lately found.
Compared with bricks and mortar and big landlords he's small beer,
So we'll snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!
The Common's vastly handy, there's no doubt, to chaps in town,
And crowds of Cockneys to the butts can quickly hurry down;
But what are _all_ Town's Cockneys to one solitary Peer?
No; let us snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!
Your Citizen who wants to play at soldiers need not look
To have his little way as though he were a Royal Dook.
With building-leases--sacred things!--he must not interfere,
So let us snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!
If he must shoot his annual shoot somewhere, why, let him go
To Pirbright or to Salisbury Plain, or e'en to Jericho.
But out from his loved Wimbledon he'll surely have to clear,--
A final snub, snub, snub, snub to the British Volunteer!
* * * * *
[Illustration: IN THE HONEYMOON.
_She (beaming)._ "WHAT FIRST ATTRACTED YOU, DEAR? WHAT AGREEABLE
CHARACTERISTIC DID I POSSESS TO PLACE ME ABOVE ALL OTHERS IN YOUR SIGHT
AND ESTIMATION?"
_He._ "H-U-M--LE'ME SEE."--(_Ponders._)--"H-M--OH, DARLING, I GIVE IT
UP. CU'IOUS THING, DEAR--I NEVER COULD GUESS WIDDLES!"]
* * * * *
"ROOM AND VERGE."
LORD SALISBURY agrees with Lord BEACONSFIELD that Asia is large enough
for both Russia and England. Quite so. And unlimited space is large
enough for all the galaxies of Worlds,--until two of them want to occupy
one portion of it. Then comes Chaos or a Cosmical Boundary Question. The
"room enough" theory is a genial one, which would have commended itself
to _Uncle Toby_. But it does not carry us practically very far on the
road to a settlement. The world was presumably "large enough" to
accommodate the ambitions of OCTAVIUS and MARK ANTONY. Only they did not
happen to think so. Collision terrestial or celestial does not come from
the narrowness of limits, but from the crossing of courses.
* * * * *