Title:  Punch Among the Planets

Author:  Various

Release Date:  August 21, 2004 [EBook #13244]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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PUNCH,

Or the London charivari.

Christmas Number 1890.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Punch Among the Planets]

Christmas number 1890.

* * * * *

Introduction.

The Old Year was fast nearing its close, the night was clear and starry, and Father Time, from the top of his observatory tower, was taking a last look round.

To him entered, unannounced save by the staccato yap of the faithful Tobias, Time’s unfailing friend, unerring Mentor, and immortal contemporary, Mr. Punch.

“I am not for an age, but for All Time,” freely quoted the Swan’s sole parallel.  “And very much at Time’s service,” he added, throwing open his fur-lined “Immensikoff,” and lighting a cigar at the Scythe-bearer’s lantern.

[Illustration:  Punch Among the Planets]

“Happy to meet you once more, Mr. Punch,” responded old Edax Rerum, turning from what the poet calls his ‘Optic Tube’ to welcome his sprightly visitor.  “Awfully good of you to turn up just now.  Like True THOMAS’s Teufelsdroeckh, ‘I am alone with the Stars,’ and was beginning to feel just a little bit lonely.”

“With the Voces Stellarum to keep you company?  You surprise me,” said Mr. Punch.  “But what is all this?” he added, pointing with accustomed eye to a pile of Ms. at TIME’s elbow.

If so old a stager as Father time can blush, he certainly did so on this occasion.

“Fact is, Mr. Punch,” he rejoined, “I, like younger and shall I say lesser Celebrities, have been writing my ‘Reminiscences.’  Ha ha! The Chronicles of Chronos in 6,000 volumes or so—­up to now.  This is a small portion of my Magnum Opus.  Can you recommend me to a publisher?”

“Ask my friend Archdeacon Farrar,” responded the Sage, drily.  “What a work!  And what a sensation!  TALLEYRAND’s long-talked-of ‘Memoirs’ not in it!  Do you know, my dear time, I think you had better postpone the publication—­for an aeon or so at least. Your Magnum Opus might become a Scandalum Magnatum.”

“Ah, perhaps so,” replied TIME, with a sigh.

“Alone with the Stars,” pursued Mr. Punch, meditatively.  “Humph!  The Solar System alone ought to provide you with plenty of company.”