Tour hand, Miss, with your heart in it,
    You to the Mother Country proffer. 
  Beshrew the cynic would-be wit. 
    Who coldly chuckles at the offer! 
  BRITANNIA takes it, with a grip
    That on the sword, at need, can clench too, too! 
  She will not that warm grasp let slip,
    Health, boys of British blood,—­and French

* * * * *

A NATIONAL APPEAL.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,—­Cannot you do something to help us, and save us from a permanent consignment to that wretched hole-in-a-corner back street site thrust upon us at the rear of the National Gallery?  We do not know how far matters may have gone, but somebody wrote the other day to The Times to protest against the job, and we conclude, therefore, it may not yet, perhaps, be too late to agitate for a stay of execution.  We are not difficult to please, and would be contented with a modest but suitable home in any convenient locality.  That such can be found when really sought for, witness the happy facility with which a fitting residence has been discovered in the east and west galleries surrounding the Imperial Institute for the promised new National Collection.  At South Kensington we had a narrow escape of a conflagration, from too close a proximity to the kitchen of a shilling restaurant.  At Bethnal Green we have been having a prolonged merry time of it, with damp walls behind us and leaking roofs above our heads.  At one time we were packed away in dusty obscurity, in the cupboards of a temporary Government office; and looking back on the past, fruitful as it is in recollections of official slights and snubs, you may gather that we can have no very ambitious designs for the future.  We do, however, protest against being tacked on as a sort of outside back-stair appendage to the National Gallery, that will soon want the space we shall be forced to occupy for its own natural and legitimate expansion.  Suggest a site for us—­anywhere else.  There is still room on the Embankment.  Kensington Palace—­is still in the market.  Why not be welcome there?  As representatives for all of us, I subscribe my name hereunder, and remain,

  Your obedient servant,
  JOSHUA REYNOLDS (late P.R.A.)

* * * * *

[Illustration:  MR. JOSKINS BUYS A BOOK ON HORSEBREAKING, AND TRIES HIS HAND.

1.  The first thing is to teach the Colt to Lead.

2.  Next put on the Bridle, and drive him quietly.

3.  After this you may get on his Back.

4.  Ride him gently at first, and avoid using the Whip.

5.  Make the Pupil understand, firmly but quietly, that you are his Master.

6.  Then, after a few Lessons, you will have broken the Colt (or he will have broken you).]

* * * * *

THE LESSON OF THE SEASON.

[Illustration]