In the coolest of ways you sum up my attractions,
    Pray allow me to turn my attention to you. 
  You are good, I believe, at the vulgarest fractions,
    You have cheek and assurance sufficient for two. 
  You are what people reckon “a nice sort of fellow,”
    Your sense of importance very strongly you feel. 
  You are bilious, you’ve got a complexion of yellow,
    You are plainer than I am—­which says a good deal.

  “Am I free altogether from blame in the matter?”—­
    And as to my frowning, I don’t know the way—­
  Do you really imagine that insolent chatter
    Can affect me, or that I care for what people say? 
  With fervent adorers around by the dozen,
    For whom but my word is the law of their life. 
  Do you think I’d occasion to pitch on a cousin,
    And announce that you wanted myself as your wife?

  Do not think I am angry, I am good at forgiving,
    Have my constant refusals then made you so sour? 
  Even poets in Punch have to write for their living,
    And must wear their poor lives out at so much the hour. 
  I am weary and tired of being proposed to,
    And at times I’m afraid it will injure my brain,
  But my heart for the future yourself, mind, is closed to,
    So don’t, I implore, come proposing again.

* * * * *

A REAL BURNING QUESTION.—­What should be done with the mischievous and malicious noodles who communicate false alarms (to the number of 518 in one year) to the London Fire Brigade, by means of the fire-alarm posts fixed for public convenience and protection in the public thoroughfares?  The almost appropriate Stake is out of date, but Mr. Punch opines that the Pillory would be none too bad for them.

* * * * *

THE BULL, THE BEAR, AND THE OXUS.—­Russia, it is asserted, “intends to annex the whole of the elevated plateaus known as the Pamirs, and all parts of Afghanistan north of a straight line drawn from Lake Victoria to the junction of the Kotcha River with the Oxus.”  JOHN BULL might say, “I should like to Kotcha at it!”

* * * * *

SOME LONDON “FIENDS.”

(HOW TO EXORCISE, AFTER READING CORRESPONDENCE ON THE SUBJECT IN SEVERAL “DAILIES.")

THE “WALKING-STICK AND UMBRELLA FIEND."

[Illustration]

Provide yourself with a steel-plated umbrella (carriage size), with a “non-conducting” handle.  When open in a shower, where people are hurrying, let the framework bristle with sharp penknife points.  Held firmly in front of you, you will find everyone get out of your way.  In entering a crowded omnibus or railway carriage, by touching a knob, let the heat generated by the electric current instantly cause the whole to become “red-hot.”  Dexterously moved about in front of you, you will find this a