The moujik crouching in his ingle
    Somewhere near Tomsk or Taganrog
  I envy; he is far from PRINGLE
    And equally remote from HOGGE.

  I find them deadly when they’re single,
    But deadlier in the duologue,
  When the insufferable PRINGLE
    Backs the intolerable HOGGE.

  I’d rather walk for miles on shingle
    Or flounder knee-deep in a bog
  Than listen to a speech from PRINGLE
    Or hearken to the howls of HOGGE.

  Their tyrannous exactions mingle
    The vices of Kings Stork and Log;
  One day I give the palm to PRINGLE,
    The next I offer it to HOGGE.

  The style of Mr. Alfred Jingle
    Was jumpy, but he did not clog
  His sense with woolly words, like PRINGLE,
    With priggish petulance, like HOGGE.

  I’d love to see the Bing Boys bingle,
    To go to music-halls incog.,
  Instead of being posed by PRINGLE
    And heckled by the hateful HOGGE.

  My appetite is gone; I “pingle”
    (As Norfolk puts it) with my prog;
  My meals are marred by thoughts of PRINGLE,
    My sleep is massacred by HOGGE.

  O patriots, with your nerves a-tingle,
    With all your righteous souls agog,
  Will none of you demolish PRINGLE
    And utterly extinguish HOGGE?

* * * * *

OF MARGARINE:  C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas le beurre.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Friend (to animal painter).  “I SAY, OLD CHAP, YOU LOOK A BIT OFF COLOUR TO-DAY.”

Artist.  “YES, I AM.  I CAN’T DO A STROKE OF WORK.”

Friend.  “ONE OF YOUR MEATLESS DAYS, IN FACT.”]

* * * * *

THE MUD LARKS.

IN the long long-ago, Frobisher and I, assisted by a handful of native troopers, kept the flag flying at M’Vini.

We hoisted it to the top of a tree at sun-up, where it remained, languidly flapping its tatters over leagues of Central African bush till sun-set, when we hauled it down again—­an arduous life.  After we had been at M’Vini about six months, had shot everything worth shooting, and knew one another’s funny stories off by heart, Frobisher and I grew bored with each other, hated in fact the sight, sound and mere propinquity of each other, and, shutting ourselves up in our separate huts, communicated only on occasions of the direct necessity, and then by the curtest of official notes.  Thus a further three months dragged on.

Then one red-hot afternoon came Frobisher’s boy to my wattle-and-dab, bearing a note.

“Visitor approaching from S.W. got up like a May-Queen; think it must be the KAISER.  Lend me a bottle of whisky and mount guard—­must impress the blighter.”