Mr. Harrison Ainsworth is respectfully requested to reveal the following
real mysteries of London, before he concludes his romance, if it is his
intention to do so:—
What becomes of all the old cabs and coaches when they get past work?
Where waiters go to when they have a holiday?
Who is _the_ subscriber to the "Metropolitan Magazine," and where a
number can be seen; or whether its existence is a fiction?
Where the money comes from which everybody, without an exception, is
reported to have made on the railways?
If the toll-keepers on Waterloo Bridge have any private friends?
What direction of the compass Marylebone Lane runs in, and where it
begins and ends?
When the gates of Leicester Square were last unlocked; and who goes in,
except the cats?
What lobster sauce is made of at cheap eating-houses; and what
difference exists between the melted butter of the same places and thin
paste?
Why Piccadilly omnibuses always stop at the corner of Coventry Street,
and then go down a miserable narrow lane, instead of the Haymarket?
Why, when you go into a linendraper's to buy a pair of white kids, you
are asked, ten times out of eleven, whether you will not have
straw-coloured?
Where the crowd of boys rise up from, to open the cab-door, or seize
your carpet-bag, the minute you get out of a railway omnibus, none
having been visible just before?
What species of position is gained from drinking champagne with the
funny singers at a supper tavern, out of a tankard?
How tradesmen of vast minds contrive to put "25,000 muffs and boas!"
into a house not capable of accommodating fifty?
AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.
BY ROBERT BURNS.
"_Lilt your Johnnie._"
Wi' patchit brose and ilka pen,
Nae bairns to clad the gleesome ken;
But chapmen billies, a' gude men,
And _Doon_ sae bonnie!
Ne'er let the scornfu' mutchit ben;
But lilt your Johnnie!
For whistle binkie's unco' biel,
Wad haggis mak of ony chiel,
To jaup in luggies like the deil,
O'er loop or cronnie:
You wadna croop to sic a weel;
But lilt your Johnnie!
Sae let the pawkie carlin scraw,
And hoolie, wi' outlandish craw,
Kail weedies frae the ingle draw
As blyth as honie;
Amang the thummart dawlit wa'
To lilt your Johnnie!