_Host._ "Can you say, "The scenery"s truly rural "bout here?""
_Guest._ "Sc-scenery tooralooral."
_Host._ "All right, come along!"]
[Ill.u.s.tration: HE KNEW THE CUISINE.--_Hungry Diner_ (_scanning the menu_). "Look here, waiter, I"m starving. I think I"ll have a little of everything!"
_Waiter._ "Yessir. (_Bawls off._) "Ash one!"]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES
"When the wine is in, the wit is out;"
Only to dolts the adage reaches.
No wise man could for a moment doubt The value of after-dinner speeches.
_Punch_ can remember the time when Peel, Whose wisdom still the country teaches, After steak and port, his nine o"clock meal, Made the best of after-dinner speeches.
When the Ministers come to the Mansion House, (The King of London their presence beseeches,) No guest who has any touch of _nous_ Will be weary of after-dinner speeches.
When the Royal Academy blooms in May, With its pretty girls and their cheeks like peaches Who won"t, on the opening Sat.u.r.day, Listen to after-dinner speeches?
When there"s ought that"s generous to be done, A greeting to pay that no soul impeaches, A dinner"s the best thing under the sun, And its gold coin the after-dinner speeches.
And as to the House, which often suffers From talk that to dreariest plat.i.tude reaches, It does not often allow its duffers To make long after-dinner speeches.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENE--CHOP-HOUSE
_Enter Street Boy, and, with suppressed ecstasy._ "Oh, please, there"s your cat and kittens having such a game with the things in the winder!"]
AT THE CRIC-CRAC RESTAURANT
_Customer_ (_looking at bill_). Here, waiter, there"s surely some mistake in this total.
_Waiter_ (_politely_). Zehn thousand pardons, sir! Mit my usual carelessness I have added in ze date and vorgot to charge you for ze b.u.t.ter.
AN OVERSIGHT!
_Swell._ Waiter! This--ah--chop"s vewy dwy!
_Waiter._ "Ndeed, sir? Perhaps if you were to order something to drink with it, sir----
[Ill.u.s.tration: A REBUKE
_Host._ "Fish is very expensive, just now, I can tell you. This salmon cost me two and sixpence a pound!"
_Guest_ (_no business of his_). "Ah, it"s very good, I think I"ll take another eighteen penn"orth!"]
[Ill.u.s.tration: CAUTION
_The Major._ "Don"t you like liqueurs, Mrs. Jinks?"
_Mrs. Jinks._ "Yes; but they make one so _unreserved_!"]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BORN ORATOR (IN THE EAST)