[Illustration:  “A1” Saxon Friar.]

As to the Music,—­well, I am not a musician, and in any new Opera when there is no one tuneful phrase as in Aida or Tannhaeuser, which, at the very first hearing, anyone with half an ear can straightway catch, and reproduce next day till everyone about him cries, “Oh don’t!” and when, as in this instance, the conducting-composer, Wagnerianly, will not permit encores—­where am I?  Nowhere.  I return home in common time, but tuneless.  On the other hand, besides being certain that Friar Tuck’s jovial song will “catch on,” I must record the complete satisfaction with which I heard the substantial whack on the drum so descriptive of Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan’s heavy fall “at the ropes.”  This last effect, being as novel as it is effective, attracted the attention of the wily and observant DRURIOLANUS, who mentally booked the effect as something startlingly new and original for his next Pantomime.  The combat between the Saxon Slogger, very much out of training, and the Norman Nobbler, rather over-trained as the result proved, is decidedly exciting, and the Nobbler would be backed at long odds.  Altogether, the whole show was thoroughly appreciated by WAMBA JUNIOR.

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SPECIMENS FROM MR. PUNCH’S SCAMP-ALBUM.

NO.  I.—­THE CLASSICAL SCHOLAR IN REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES.

You are, let us say, a young professional man in chambers or offices, incompetently guarded by an idiot boy whom you dare not trust with the responsibility of denying you to strangers.  You hear a knock at your outer door, followed by conversation in the clerk’s room, after which your salaried idiot announces, “A Gentleman to see you.”  Enter a dingy and dismal little man in threadbare black, who advances with an air of mysterious importance.  “I think,” he begins, “I ’ave the pleasure of speaking to Mr.——­” (whatever your name is.) “I take the liberty of calling, Mr.——­, to consult you on a matter of the utmost importance, and I shall feel personally obliged if you will take precautions for our conversation not being over’eard.”

He looks grubby for a client—­but appearances are deceptive, and you offer him a seat, assuring him that he may speak with perfect security—­whereupon he proceeds in a lowered voice.

[Illustration]

“The story I am about to reveal,” he says, smoothing a slimy tall hat, “is of a nature so revolting, so ’orrible in its details, that I can ’ardly bring myself to speak it to any ’uming ear!” (Here you will probably prepare to take notes.) “You see before you one who is of ’igh birth but low circumstances!” (At this, you give him up as a possible client, but a mixture of diffidence and curiosity compels you to listen.) “Yes, Sir, I was ‘fruges consumeary nati.’  I ’ave received a neducation more befitting a dook than my present condition.  Nursed in the lap of haffluence, I