He hath not a blazing Bardolphian nose,
    He is not flamboyant or furious;
  His Crown’s a brass helmet, his Sceptre a hose;
    True Fire King,—­all others are spurious.

  For he rules the flames; he has done so for long;
    And now that he talks of retiring,
  Men mourn for the fire-queller cautious and strong,
    Whose reign they’ve so long been admiring.

  Clear-headed, cool Captain, great chief M.F.B.,
    All London is sorry to lose you;
  As kindly as kingly, from prejudice free;
    No danger could daunt or confuse you.

  As doffing your helmet, and dropping your hose,
    You bid us farewell, we all own you
  As one of Fiend Fire’s most redoubtable foes;
    As that thirty years we have known you.

  Our Big Boards might job, and our Big Wigs might jaw,
    But, spite of their tricks and their cackle,
  One Chief we could trust; we were sure that our SHAW
    His duty would manfully tackle.

  So farewell, great Fire King!  Your crown you lay by;
    E’en you cannot lay by your credit. 
  Ignipotent Knight?  Well, you ought to stand high
    In the next Honour-List! Punch has said it!

* * * * *

OFF TO MASHERLAND.

(BY OUR OWN GRANDOLPH.)

(SECOND LETTER.—­B.)

THE MAGNUM OPUS.

[Illustration]

A propos of this heading, what a treasure a Magnum Opal would be.  This remark is only “by the way.”  My motto is Business First, Play (on words) afterwards.  So to work.

I really think I shall take to Guide-book writing. Grandolph’s Guides would be immensely popular.  I’m sure I can do it—­for upon my word I can do a’most anything if I only buckle to.  By the way, ‘Buckle’ suggests history.  Can go in for “making history” when I’ve done this work.  WILLIAMS—­not MONTAGU the Magistrate—­(good title this for something)—­but my friend the Companionable Captain ——­ is at work; when he has done, he reads out a few descriptive paragraphs for my approbation, or the contrary.  When I nod it means that I like it; when I don’t nod, he has to wait till I do.  I generally begin nodding about the middle of the first paragraph.

“Well,” says he, the other day, quite suddenly, “I’m glad you like it all so much.”

“Like all what?” I exclaimed, blowing the cigar-ash off my pyjamas, and wondering to myself how I could have been so absorbed in his reading aloud as to have let my half-smoked havannah tumble on to the floor.

“Why, all I’ve been reading to you for the last hour and a half,” returned the Captain, apparently somewhat annoyed; peppery chap, the Captain,—­’Curried’ Captain when on board Sir DONALD’s boat,—­but to resume.  Says the Curried Captain, still a bit annoyed, “You passed all the paragraphs, one after the other, and whenever I stopped to ask you how you liked it, you nodded.”