[Illustration: Going it like Bricks—]
a hope instantly gratified by the stalwart proprietor, who, wildly exclaiming, “Sit aisy!” hoisted the lordly burden on his shoulders, and gave him the full benefit of a shilling fare in that most unusual vehicle.
* * * * *
Q.E.D.
“Sir Robert Peel thinks a great deal of himself,” says the British Critic. “Yes,” asserts PUNCH, “he is just the man to trouble himself about trifles.”
* * * * *
[Illustration]
ROEBUCK DEFYING THE “THUNDERER.”
Roebuck was seated in his
great arm chair,
Looking
as senatorial and wise
As
a calf’s head, when taken in surprise;
A half-munch’d muffin
did his fingers bear—
An empty egg-shell proved
his meal nigh o’er.
When, lo! there came a tapping
at the door:
“Come
in!” he cried,
And
in another minute by his side
Stood John the footboy, with
the morning paper,
Wet from the press. O’er
Roebuck’s cheek
There passed a
momentary gleam of joy,
Which spoke, as plainly as
a smile could speak,
“Your master’s
speech is in that paper, boy.”
He waved his hand—the
footboy left the room—
Roebuck pour’d out a
cup of Hyson bloom;
And, having sipp’d the
tea and sniff’d the vapour,
Spread out the “Thunderer”
before his eyes—
When, to his great surprise,
He saw imprinted there, in
black and white,
That he, THE ROE-buck—HE,
whom all men knew,
Had been expressly born to
set worlds right—
That HE was nothing
but a parvenu.
Jove! was it possible they
lack’d the knowledge he
Boasted a literary and scientific
genealogy!
That he had had some ancestors
before him—
(Beside the Pa who wed the
Ma who bore him)—
Men whom the world had slighted,
it is true,
Because
it never knew
The greatness of the genius
which had lain,
Like unwrought ore, within
each vasty brain;
And as a prejudice exists
that those
Who never do disclose
The knowledge that they boast
of, seldom have any,
Each of his learned ancestors
had died,
By an ungrateful world belied,
And dubb’d a Zany.
That
HE should be
Denied
a pedigree!
Appeared so monstrous in this
land of freedom,
He instantly conceived the
notion
To go down to the House and
make a motion,
That all men had a right to
those who breed ’em.
* * * * *