The Y.S..  We Soshalists ’ate the Tories as we ’ate sin.  Why, young polertician as I ham, &c., &c.

The Spiritualist (an elderly and earnest person).  All I can reply to you is, we Spiritualists do not think—­we know that these phenomena appear—­yes, as surely as I know I am ’olding this stick in my ’and.

The Sceptic (pityingly).  There you go again, yer see—­that stick ain’t the point. I can see the stick.  A stick ain’t a phenomena—­you’re confusin’ two different things.  Now I’m goin’ to offer you a fair challenge.  You perdooce me a Spirit—­not in a back room, with the lights out, but ’ere, in broad daylight, in this Park—­you get that Spirit to naturalise itself, or whatever you call it, and I’ll believe in ’im.  Come, now!

A Bystander.  Ah, that’s the way to corner ’is sort.  ’E knows ’e carn’t do it!

The Spiritualist (with a smile of sad superiority).  Ridicule ain’t argyment. [The discussion continues.

The Young Socialist.  Don’t tork to me of Patriotism!  What have the likes of you and me got to be patriotic about?  I’m a Universalist, I am, and so long as a man rallies round our glorious Red Flag (here he waves a dingy scarlet rag on a stick), it’s all one to me whether his own colour is black, yeller, green, brown, or white!

    [Applause.

Reciter Number One (in the midst of a thrilling prose narrative about a certain “’ARRY,” who has apparently got into legal difficulties for having thrown a cocoa-nut stick at a retired Colonel).  Well, I went into the Court ’ouse, and there, sure enough, was my pore mate ’ARRY in the dock, and there was hold Ginger-whiskers (laughter) a setting on the bench along with the hother beaks, lookin’ biliouser, and pepperier, and more happerplecticker nor ever!  “Prison-ar,” he sez, addressin’ ’ARRY (imitation of the voice and manner of a retired Colonel), “Prison-ar, ’ave you—­har—­hanythink to say in your beyarf—­har?” And then, hall of a sudden, I sor a flash come into my dear ’ole comride ’ARRY’s heyes, as he strightened ’imself in the dock, and gave the milingtery sloot, and then, in a voice as sounded as true and sweet and clear as a bell, he sez—­

A Dingy and Unprepossessing Preacher (unctuously).  Well beloved friends, as I was telling yer, I went ’ome to the ’ouse of that pious Methodist lady, and she told me as ’ow she ’ad two dear unconverted sons, an’ I knelt down (_&c., &c._), an’ after that we ’ad our tea, and then I preached a sermon—­ah, I well remember I took my tex from (_&c. &c._)—­an’ then she gave me supper (more unctuously still), as nice a bit o’ cold beef and ’ome-brewed ale as ever I wish to taste, and I slep’ that blessed night in a warm comfortable bed—­and this (drawing the inevitable moral) this brings me round to what I started on, inasmuch as it proves (with a forbidding smile) as ’ow yer may sometimes hentertain a angel unawares!