Domestic (lately received into the Plymouth Brotherhood).  “Oh no, miss—­it’s galvanised Iron!”]

* * * * *

My soap.

[Illustration]

  I’m the maker of a Soap, which I confidently hope
  In the advertising tournament will win,
  And remain the fit survival, having vanquished every rival
  Which is very detrimental to the skin.

  I will now proceed to show, what the public ought to know,
  Unless they would be blindly taken in. 
  How in every soap but mine certain qualities combine
  To make it detrimental to the skin.

  But surely at this date it is needless I should state
  That the cheaper soaps are barely worth a pin,
  For they all contain a mixture, either free or as a fixture,
  Which is very detrimental to the skin.

  And every cake you buy is so charged with alkali,
  To soda more than soap it is akin;
  It is really dear at last, for it wastes away so fast. 
  And is very detrimental to the skin.

  The public I must warn of the colours that adorn
  The soaps ambitious foreigners bring in;
  They are often very pretty, but to use them is a pity,
  For they’re very detrimental to the skin.

  There are soaps which you can see through.  I ask, What can it be
          through? 
  Is it resin, or some other form of sin? 
  There are soaps which smell too strong, and of course that must be
          wrong,
  And extremely detrimental to the skin.

  And too much fat’s injurious, and so are soaps sulphureous,
  Though they say they keep the hair from growing thin;
  They may keep a person’s hair on, like the precious oil of Aaron,
  And yet be detrimental to his skin.

  In short, the only soap which is fit for Prince or Pope
  (I have sent some to the Kaiser at Berlin)
  Is the article I sell you.  Don’t believe the firms who tell you
  It is very detrimental to the skin.

* * * * *

A liquor question.—­Why does a toper—­especially when “before the beak”—­always say that he was “in drink,” when he evidently means that the drink was in him?  The only soaker on record who could rightly be said to be “in drink” was,

  “Maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.”

He was “in liquor” with a vengeance.  But less lucky wine-bibbers need not be illogical as well as inebriate.

* * * * *

Mr. GOSCHEN’S budget.—­“From a fiscal point of view, the Tobacco receipts are extremely good.”  So unlike JOKIM.  Of course, as he never loses a chance of a jeu de mot, what he must have said was, that “the Tobacco ‘returns’ are extremely good.”  “A birthday Budget,—­many happy ‘returns,’” he observed jocosely to Prince Arthur, “quite japing times!” And off he went for his holiday; and, weather permitting, as he reclines in his funny among the weeds, he will gently murmur, “Dulce est desipere in smoko.”