[Illustration:  A TRIPLE ALLIANCE.

“THE PRINCE OF WALES DOTH JOIN WITH ALL THE WORLD IN PRAISE OF—­KAISER WILHELM; BY MY HOPES, I DO NOT THINK A BRAVER GENTLEMAN,

“MORE ACTIVE-VALIANT, OR MORE VALIANT-YOUNG, MORE DARING, OR MORE BOLD, IS NOW ALIVE TO GRACE THIS LATTER AGE WITH NOBLE DEEDS.”]

* * * * *

HENLEY REGATTA.

(BY MR. PUNCH’S OWN OARSMAN.)

Sir,—­This letter is private and is not intended for publication.  I particularly beg that you will note this, as on a former occasion some remarks of mine, which were intended only for your private eye, were printed.  I of course accepted your assurance that no offence was meant, and that the oversight was due to a person whose services had since the occurrence been dispensed with; but I look to you to take care that it shall not happen again.  Otherwise the mutual confidence that should always exist between an editor and his staff cannot possibly be maintained, and I shall have to transfer my invaluable services to some other paper.  The notes and prognostications which I have laboriously compiled with regard to the final results of the Regatta will arrive by the next post, and will, I flatter myself, be found to be extraordinarily accurate, besides being written in that vivid and picturesque style which has made my contributions famous throughout the civilised world.

[Illustration]

There are one or two little matters about which I honestly desire to have your opinion.  You know perfectly well that I was by no means anxious for the position of aquatic reporter.  In vain I pointed out to you that my experience of the river was entirely limited to an occasional trip by steamboat from Charing Cross to Gravesend.  You said that was an amply sufficient qualification, and that no aquatic reporter who respected himself and his readers, had ever so far degraded himself as to row in a boat and to place his body in any of the absurd positions which modern oarsmanship demands.  Finding you were inexorable, and knowing your ridiculously hasty temper, I consented finally to undertake the arduous duties.  These circumstances, however, make it essential that you should give me advice when I require it.  For obvious reasons I don’t much like to ask any of the rowing men here any questions.  They are mostly in what they call hard training, which means, I fancy, a condition of high irritability.  Their strokes may be long, but their tempers are, I regret to say, painfully short.  Besides, to be candid, I don’t wish to show the least trace of ignorance.  My position demands that I should be omniscient, and omniscient, to all outward appearance, I shall remain.