“Your Majesty” said Mr. Punch, “your country is, indeed, highly blessed, and your subjects are marvellously accomplished.  You dwell here without men, without chaperons, and you are lovely,” he added, with emotion, “beyond the power of words to express.  Would that your example could be followed upon earth!”

And with this, he and the Father kissed the young Queen’s hand, and left the royal presence chamber.

* * * * *

VISIT TO SERIOCOMIX.

“And so,” said TIME, as he carefully arranged his forelock before a mirror in the corridor, in reply to a communication recently made to him by Mr. Punch en route, “and so we’re to make a regular rollicking night of it’?  You insist on taking me into every Music Hall in Seriocomix, hey, you young dog, you!  Well, well, Sir, I’m not so young as I used to be—­but I’m as fond of a bit of good honest wholesome fun as ever I was.  So lead on!”

[Illustration]

They were in Seriocomix—­a new and brilliant planet recently discovered by Mr. Punch—­by the aid of WELLER’s patent double-million gas-magnifying microscope (extra power).  This star, as all astronomers are by this time aware, is a howling waste of extraordinary density, and occupied entirely by Music Halls, which TIME, for some inexplicable reason, was desirous of visiting in Mr. Punch’s company.

Mr. Punch, though considerably TIME’s junior, almost envied his companion’s boyish eagerness for pleasure; he was so evidently unfamiliar with Music Halls.

“If you are expecting to be vastly amused, Sir,” Mr. Punch ventured to hint, “I am afraid you may be just a trifle disappointed.”

“Disappointed?” said TIME; “not a bit of it, Sir; not a bit of it!  Isn’t a Music Hall a place of entertainment?  You’ve plenty of them where you come from, haven’t you?  They wouldn’t be filled night after night, as I’m given to understand they are, if they didn’t succeed in entertaining, would they, now?”

Mr. Punch felt a natural reluctance to betray the weak points of any terrestrial institution.

“Oh, our Music Halls? they are perfection, of course,” he said.  “The entertainments there are distinguished by humour of the most refined and intellectual order.  It only struck me that they mayn’t be quite the same here, you know, that’s all.”

“We shall see, Sir, we shall see,” said TIME.  “I don’t think I’m particularly difficult to amuse.”  By this time they had entered the dazzling hall, and, reclining on sumptuous seats, were prepared to bestow their best attention upon the proceedings.  A stout man with a fair wig, a dyed moustache and a blue chin, occupied the stage.  He was engaged in representing a Member of the Seriocomican aristocracy with irresistible powers of social fascination, and he wore a loose-caped cloak over garments of closely-fitting black, which opened in front to display a mass of crumpled white, amidst which scintillated an enormous jewel.  In his hand he held a curious black disc, with which he beat time to a ditty, of which Mr. Punch only succeeded in catching the following refrain:—­