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We gave a little dinner; and I own,
Led by a wish with style to stamp the _fête_,
Palmed off, as though a butler of our own,
A skilled Greengrocer we had in "to wait."--
I thought he seemed to sway beneath the fish--
And stagger with a half familiar smile,
When, lo! he fell, remarking blandly, "Thish
All comes of tryin' to do the thing in shtyle!"
I thundered, "Leave the room!" He saw my fix,
And but retorted, "'Ere, you ain't a Duke!
I'm not a-goin' without my three-and-six!"
Thus came on me that Greengrocer's Rebuke!
That banquet was our last. No more we "dined,"
In, now and then, perchance a friend might drop.
It is our boast that he will ever find
At least the welcome of a homely chop.
Some day, perhaps, when I have made my pile,
And can from ostentatious show refrain,
Without the Greengrocer to purchase "style,"
I possibly once more may entertain!
And so,--I know not how it came about,
But if by chance, it is a happy fluke
That I at length without the slightest doubt
Have lived to bless that Greengrocer's Rebuke!
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QUELCHING QUELCH.--Mr. QUELCH, before the Labour Commission, is said
to have expressed his opinion that "the liberty to combine should
not involve the liberty not to combine." Doesn't Mr. QUELCH see, that
without "liberty not to combine" there _cannot_ be any "liberty to
combine." For if a man is not at liberty to abstain from combination,
it is obvious that he is compelled to combine; and compulsion is
hardly liberty. Freedom lies in choice, and Mr. QUELCH would leave the
workman none.
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