The humour of the dialogue was fresh and well sustained.  Here and there Mr. HARCOURT permitted himself allusive refinements which deserved a better response, as when Captain Corkoran, discussing with Mabel the menu of the dinner that she fails to cook for him, adapts the language of SOLOMON and says, “Fritter me apples, for I am sick of love.”  This was lost upon an audience insufficiently familiar with the works of that great voluptuary.

O.S.

* * * * *

TASTY DISHES.

(By Mr. Punch’s Food Specialist.)

Mr. Punch considers it to be his duty at the present time to show how an abundance of excellent and nourishing food may be obtained from the most unlikely materials.  In doing this he is aware that he is merely following the example set him by countless culinary experts, who have communicated their ideas to the daily press; but Mr. Punch is not to be deterred from doing a helpful action by any paltry jealousy as to precedence.  His readers, he knows, will be grateful to him for his generosity.

NO.  I.—­FOR GENERAL USE.

Take two Committees—­it is not absolutely necessary that they should meet more than once—­and, having added to them a Chairman, stew on a slow fire until a Secretary emerges.  Turn into an enamelled saucepan and set to simmer over gas.  Then boil up twice into resolutions and votes of thanks, and let the whole toast for at least three hours.  Sprinkle with amendments and add salt and pepper to taste.  Then brown with a salamander and serve up hot in egg-cups.

NO.  II.—­FOR A HOUSEHOLDER IN STREATHAM OR CAMDEN TOWN.

To half a tennis-lawn add two ounces of croquet-mallet and three arches of pergola, and reduce the whole to a fine powder.  Drench with still lemonade and boil into a thick paste.  Add two hundredweight of dandelions and plantains together with at least three pounds of garden-roller and five yards of wire-netting carefully grilled.  Let this be roasted and basted for an hour and then flavoured with vantage.  Turn out into a mould, and serve overhand as fast as possible, having first shred into the mixture half a ton of daisies or buttercups, according to taste.

NO.  III.—­BEESTING JELLY FOR APIARIANS.

Catch one thousand bees and extract their stings.  Then throw away the bees and lay the stings gently but firmly on a mash composed of the breasts of five Buff Orpington cockerels.  Sift the whole through a fine cloth and add the yolks of a hundred poached eggs.  Beat up together for an hour and ten minutes.  Flavour with coffee and dilute with elderberry wine.  Allow the mixture to simmer in a hot oven and serve with fresh asparagus cut before breakfast.

NO.  IV.—­PUNTPOLE PIE FOR RIPARIAN OWNERS.