“Yes, we never stand a foreigner’s dictation! 
    No matter if we’re wrong or if we’re right;
  We’re a breed of good old bulldogs as a nation,
    And we never stop to bark before we bite!”

And then the singer, a fat-necked man, in a kind of military uniform, drew a sword and struck an attitude, amidst red fire, which aroused vociferous enthusiasm.

TIME seemed to be getting restless again, so they moved on once. more, and presently entered a hall where they found a stout lady with a powdered face and extremely short skirts, about to sing a pathetic song, which had been expressly written to suit her talents.

She began in a quavering treble that was instinct with intense feeling:—­

  “Under the dysies to rest I have lyed him;
  My little cock-sparrer so fythful and tyme! 
  And the duckweed he loved so is blooming besoide him,
  But I clean out his cyge every d’y just the syme! 
  For it brings him before me so sorcy and sproightly,
  As with seed and fresh water his glorsis I fill: 
  Though the poor little tyle which he waggled so lytely
  Loys under the dysies all stiffened and still!”

—­And then, to a subdued obbligato upon a bird-whistle, came the touching refrain: 

  “Yes, I hear him singing ‘Tweet,’ so melodious and sweet! 
  Till his shadder comes and flits about the room.  ‘Tweet-tweet-tweet!’
  All my sorrer I forget.  For I have the forncy yet,
  That he twitters while he’s loyin’ in his tomb—­’Tweet-tweet!’
  Yes, he twitters to me softly from his tomb!”

Mr. Punch observed his elder attentively during this plaintive ditty, but there was no discernible moisture in TIME’s hard old eyes, though among the rest of the audience noses were being freely blown.

“Well,” he said, “it may be very touching and even elevating, for anything I know—­but it’s not my notion of cheerful entertainment.  I’m off!”

“I should like,” said TIME, rather wistfully, as they proceeded to visit yet another establishment, “yes, I should like to hear something comic before the evening is over.”

“Now is your opportunity, then,” said Mr. Punch, taking his seat and inspecting the programme, “for I observe that the gentleman who is to appear next is described as a ‘Mastodon Mirth-moving Mome.’”

“And does that mean that he is funny?” inquired TIME, hopefully.

“If it doesn’t, I don’t know what it does mean,” replied Mr. Punch, as the Mastodon entered.

His mere appearance was calculated to provoke—­and did provoke—­roars of laughter, though TIME only gazed the more sadly at him.  He had coarse black hair falling about his ears, a white face, and a crimson nose; he wore a suit of dingy plaid, a battered hat, and long-fingered thread gloves.  And he sang, very slowly and dolefully, this side-splitting ballad:—­