What wonder poor “PUNJAB,” who hails from the “Garrick,”
  Got hungry as VASHTI, and dry as a hayrick? 
  An Edition de Luxe, as a rule, is a sell,
  But a Train de Luxe sure as a fraud bears the bell,
  Which promises travel more cosy and quicker,
  And leaves you half starved, without money—­or liquor!

* * * * *

KILLING NO MURDER!—­A Correspondent of the Times, protesting against the assumption of combatant rank by the Army Surgeons, writes:—­“A military doctor is armed, and like others is entitled to defend himself when attacked, but that is a very different thing from giving him full licence to kill.”  The Correspondent evidently overlooks the powers afforded by a medical diploma!

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “IT’S AN ILL WIND” &C.

“Partridge-shooting will be postponed in several districts till the middle of September.”—­Daily Telegraph, August, 28.

Chorus of Partridges.  “LONG MAY IT RAIN!”]

* * * * *

MISLED BY A MANUAL!

(THE LAMENT OF A WOULD-BE LINGUIST.)

  When on my Continental tour preparing to depart,
  I bought a Conversation-Book, and got it up by heart;
  A handy manual it seemed, convenient and neat,
  And gave for each contingency a dialogue complete.

  Upon the weather—­wet or fine—­I could at will discourse,
  Or bargain for a bonnet, or a boot-jack, or a horse;
  Tell dentists, in three languages, which tooth it is that hurts;
  Or chide a laundress for the lack of starch upon my shirts.

  I landed full of idioms, which I fondly hoped to air—­
  But crushing disappointment met my efforts everywhere. 
  The waiters I in fluent French addressed at each hotel
  Would answer me in English, and—­confound ’em!—­spoke it well.

  Those phrases I was furnished with, for Germany or France,
  I realised, with bitterness, would never have a chance! 
  I swore that they should hear me yet, and proudly turned my back
  On polyglots in swallowtails, and left the beaten track....

  They spoke the native language now; but—­it was too absurd—­
  Of none of their own idioms they apparently had heard! 
  My most colloquial phrases fell, I found, extremely flat. 
  They may have come out wrong-side up, but none the worse for that.

  I tried them with my Manual; it was but little good;
  For not one word of their replies I ever understood. 
  They never said the sentences that should have followed next: 
  I found it quite impossible to keep them to the text!

  Besides, unblushing reference to a Conversation-Book
  Imparts to social intercourse an artificial look. 
  So I let the beggars have their way.  ’Twas everywhere the same;
  I led the proper openings—­they wouldn’t play the game.