Next round the Slasher’s groggy, ’e ’angs ’is ’ands and gropes
  (I’d knocked him orf ‘is legs at last) a-feelin’ for the ropes. 
  And, lor, ’e looked so cheerful with ’is face a mask of red
  That I bust myself with laughin’ when I bashed ’im on the ’ead. 
        Then they counted up to ten,
        But ’e couldn’t rise again;
  ’E gasped a bit, and puffed a bit, and laid there in a ’eap. 
        And I copped a thousand pounds
        For a fight of seven rounds,
  Which was all the time it took me for to put my man to sleep.

  Ah, the soft uns call it brutal; there’s Mr. H.P.  Cobb,
  And ‘is talk, which isn’t pretty, about ruffians (meanin’ us). 
  I’d like to tap ’is claret when ’e’s up and on the job,
  And send ’im ’ome a ‘owlin’ to ’is mammy or ’is nuss. 
        But I’d rather take the chuck
        For a show of British pluck,
  And do my month in chockee, and eat my skilly free;
        And I’ll leave the curs to snivel
        With their ‘Ouse o’ Commons drivel,
  Which may suit a pack of jaw-pots, but, by gosh, it don’t suit me.

* * * * *

“What I suffer from, at this time of year, when I go into the country,” says Mrs. R., “is ‘Flybites.’” She pronounced it as a word of three syllables, and then added, “I rather think the learned way of spelling it is ‘Phlybites.’”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  CORIOLANUS.

  “I WOULD HE HAD CONTINU’D TO HIS COUNTRY
  AS HE BEGAN, AND NOT UNKNIT, HIMSELF,
  THE NOBLE KNOT HE MADE.”—­Coriolanus, Act.  IV., Scene 2.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  HENGENIOUS IDEA.

Early Visitor. “WHY, WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING, MATHILDE,—­TURNING YOUR BOUDOIR INTO A POULTRY YARD?”

Mathilde. “WELL, MY DEAR, AS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO RELY ON GETTING NEW-LAID EGGS IN TOWN, I HAVE HAD MY PET COCHIN-CHINA UP FROM THE COUNTRY, AND SHE IS THOROUGHLY TO BE TRUSTED!”]

* * * * *

CORIOLANUS.

  “I would he had continu’d to his country
  As he began, and not unknit, himself,
  The noble knot he made.”

Coriolanus, Act IV., Scene 2.

“His Majesty discriminates between the Prince BISMARCK of former times, and of to-day, and is anxious that his Government should avoid everything which might tend to diminish, in the eyes of the German nation, the familiar figure of its greatest Statesman.”—­Instructions to Imperial German Representatives abroad:—­

  Can this be he who “At the Gates"[1]
    Of Janus’ Temple stood of old,
    Protective, vigilant, and bold,
  As one who calmly dares—­and waits?

  “So fancy limns him, who’ll not cease
    To watch o’er what his brain upbuilt,”
    Punch sang.  And now he lifts the hilt,
  Warlike, against a Patriot Peace.