I am, Sir,
Yours as usual,
Le Petit shows.

* * * * *

The professional guest at A country house.

Dear Mr. Punch,

Trusting that you take some interest in my fate, after the more or less pleasant (?) week I spent at Henley, I hasten to let you know that I am again visiting friends, though this time on terra firma, and that the customary trials of the “Professional Guest” are once more my portion.  The very evening of my arrival, I discovered that a man with whom I had not been on speaking terms for years was to be my neighbour at dinner, and that a girl (who really I cannot understand any one asking to their house) with the strangest coloured hair, and the most unnaturally dark eyes, was taken in by the host, and called “darling” by the hostess.  After dinner, which, by reason of the “range” being out of order, was of a rather limited type, they all played cards.  That is a form of amusement I don’t like—­I can’t afford it; and this, coupled with the fact that I was not asked to sing, somewhat damped my ardour as regards visiting strange houses.

[Illustration]

A hard bed, and a distant snore, kept me awake till break of day, when, for a brief space, I successfully wooed Morpheus.  I think I slept for seven minutes.  Then a loud bell rang, and several doors on an upper floor were heavily banged.  I heard the servants chattering as they went down to breakfast.  Then there was silence, and once more I composed myself to rest, when the dreadest sound of all broke on my ear. The baby began to cry. Then I gave it up as hopeless, but it was with a sensation of being more dead than alive that I crawled down to breakfast—­late, of course.  One is always late the first morning in a strange house—­one can never find one’s things.  I bore with my best professional smile the hearty chaff of my host (how I hate a hearty man the first thing in the morning) and the audible remarks of the dear children who were seated at intervals round the table.  But my patience well-nigh gave way when I found that our hostess had carefully mapped out for her guests a list of amusements (save the mark!) which extended not only over that same day, but several ensuing ones.

I am not of a malice-bearing nature, but I do devoutly pray that she, too, may one day taste the full horror of being tucked into a high dog-cart alongside of a man who you know cannot drive; the tortures, both mental and physical, of a long walk down dusty roads and over clayey fields to see that old Elizabethan house “only a mile off;” or the loathing induced by a pic-nic among mouldering and utterly uninteresting ruins.  All this I swallowed with the equanimity and patience born of many seasons of country-house visiting; I even interviewed the old family and old-fashioned cook, on the subject of a