Djak. Oh, what have you put round my neck?  Oh me!  You are going to ... oh, you are!

Ponsch.  Oh, I am!

Djak. Then—­oh!

Ponsch.  Oh!

    [Exeunt all, except DJAKKETCH, who ceases kicking
    gradually.  A peacock is heard warbling in a cemetery round the
    corner; a barn-door fowl jumps on a wheelbarrow, and crows.

FINIS.

* * * * *

HORACE IN LONDON.

TO A CRUSTED OLD PORT. (AD AMPHORAM.)

[Illustration]

  Old liquor born on my birthday, a twin to me,
  Whether ordained wit and mirth to put into me,
    Or passions that witch and defy us,
      Or, peradventure, the sleep of the pious.

  Vaunt not its shippers, my friend, but produce it—­an
  Actual, “forty-five,” languorous Lusitan,
    Befitting, whate’er be its label,
      You, my good host, and the guest at your table.

  Steeped though you frown in this dryasdust clever age,
  Dare you presume to resist such a beverage? 
    Why, ELDON, that dragon of virtue,
      Never imagined its vintage could hurt you.

  Liquor like this from a bottle whose crust is whole,
  Liquor like this rubs the rust from the rusty soul;
    The faddist it mellows:  the private
      Secrets of State it can somehow arrive at.

  Under its spell frolics Hypochondriasis;
  Poverty learns what a millionnaire’s bias is,
    Yes, Poverty, such a spell under,
      Laughs at the County Court’s impotent thunder.

  Fill, then!  A bumper we’ll empty between us to
  Bacchus, the Pas-de-trois Graces, and Venus too,
    With all of that classical ilk, man—­
      Till the stars fade with the morn and the milkman.

* * * * *

THE “TA-RA-RA” BOOM.

(BY OUR OWN MELANCHOLY MUSER.)

  I am shrouded in impenetrable gloom-de-ay,
  For I feel I’m being driven to my doom-de-ay,
      By an aggravating ditty
      Which I don’t consider witty;
  And they call the horrid thing, “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”

  Every ’bus-conductor, errand-boy, and groom-de-ay,
  City clerk, and cheeky crossing-sweep with broom-de-ay
      Makes my nervous system bristle
      As he tries to sing or whistle
  That atrocious and absurd “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”

  So I sit in the seclusion of my room-de-ay,
  And deny myself to all—­no matter whom-de-ay—­
      For I dread a creature coming
      Whose involuntary humming
  May assume the fatal form, “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”

  Oh, I fear that when the Summer roses bloom-de-ay,
  You will read upon a well-appointed tomb-de ay:—­
      “Influenza never lick’d him,
      But he fell an easy victim
  To that universal scourge—­’Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!’”