of picking up ‘Fondlings’ all
        round. 
  You’re nussing a wiper, I say, and you’ll soon feel ’is bite, I’ll
        be bound. 
  Who arsked for ’im, BETSY—­I mean Missis G.—­who demanded the brat?
  You’ve altered your mind, and you pet him; you’d much better mind
        what you’re at. 
  Drat the boy’s bragian imperence! I says.  He’s a halien, a fondling,
        a waif,
  And I never knew, for my part, any Brummagem goods as wos safe!”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE ADOPTED CHILD.

MOTHER GOSCHEN.  “FOUND ’IM IN BIRMINGHAM, MY DEAR!  DIDN’T LIKE ’IM AT
FIRST,—­BUT, SOMEHOW, I’VE QUITE TOOK A FANCY TO ’IM!!”

MRS. GAMP.  “A FONDLING INDEED!—­WHICH ALL I CAN SAY IS I DON’T LIKE
THE LOOKS OF ’IM!!”]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

House of Commons, Monday, April 27.—­“Well, I never!” said GEORGE ELLIOT, beaming on House from back bench; “have known HARCOURT man and boy for forty years; seen him in divers moods; watched him through various occupations.  These have been so many that I have had time to forget he was once Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he was, and upon my word, listening to him to-night, and knowing something about figures myself, I believe he would have made a splash at the Treasury.”

[Illustration:  Genial George.]

JOKIM doesn’t enjoy performance quite so much as GENIAL GEORGE.  Oddly enough, Budget Night, which ought to be the apex of comfort and glory for CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, is with him ever the season of tribulation.  House of Commons is, regarded as audience, always at its best on Budget Night.  Will laugh immoderately at feeblest joke uttered by CHANCELLOR; cheers to the echo his moral sentiments; sits enraptured when he soars into eloquence; and is undisguisedly grateful when he has completed his peroration.  JOKIM’S muddle of Thursday night made the best of.  Opposition silenced by promised legislation establishing Free Education.  Everything in sunshine-glow of prosperity.  Thought JOKIM might keep some of the sunbeams for himself.  Then comes HARCOURT with the abhorred shears of facts and figures, and slits the thin-spun web of JOKIM’S ingenious fancy; shows that, instead of a surplus, he has, when honest arithmetic is set to work, a deficit; instead of increasing the rate of reduction of National Debt, he has done less in that direction than his predecessors; and that whilst expenditure on Army and Navy has exceeded any figures reached by former Chancellors of the Exchequer, the floating debt is ever growing.