[Illustration]
Sweet Maiden, what is this you wear,
This most eccentric sort of bonnet,
That stands erect upon your hair
As though a coal-scoop fixed upon it?
A very funny shape it seems,
Flat, oval, rather like a shuttle,
Or, like some Statesmen's foreign schemes,
A sort of undecided scuttle.
And yet not wholly of the kind
Beloved by loud Salvation lasses,
Which brings the coal-box to one's mind--
BOOTH'S fashions would not suit the Classes.
There's some resemblance to a spoon,
But you are not considered "spooney"--
Word coined by some low buffoon,
Romantic, quite, as "_Annie Rooney_."
It's rather like the ace of spades,
And yet it plays the deuce with features,
O Queen of hearts, of pretty maids,
So say we knaves of clubs, male creatures;
Who look askance at what may shade--
When larger grown--the face that charms us.
If scoop or scuttle, spoon or spade,
No matter; each of them alarms us.
* * * * *
A POSSIBLE BUNGLER.--Through REUTER'S Agency last Friday, we learn that
"BUNGLE KHAN is in Afghan territory." Capital man to be opposed to us. We
shall be ready to take any advantage of him, as, if BUNGLE KHAN _can
bungle_, he will of course do so.
* * * * *
ONE FOR THE OTHER SIDE.--Mrs. R. cannot understand how Mr. GLADSTONE can
advocate Monometallism in the House of Commons, as, she says, she has
always heard that "Words are silver, and silence is gold."
* * * * *
[Illustration: EMBARRASSING.
_Curate._ "HELLO, REGIE! AH, IT'S GOOD TO BE YOU! A POOR BEGGAR LIKE ME,
YOU SEE, HAS TO BE CONTENT WITH RUNNING AFTER THE HOUNDS ON FOOT."
_Regie_ (_who, as the Son of our M.F.H., has all the Hunting-Man's horror
of Foot-people_). "AH--YES. AND THE PATER SAYS HE WOULDN'T MIND THAT SO
MUCH, IF ONLY HALF THE PARISH DIDN'T SOMETIMES TURNOUT TO RUN AFTER
_YOU_!"]
* * * * *