OCTOBER 1, 1892

“Stumped!”

(A WOULD-BE LAUDATORY ODE.  BY JINGLE JUNIOR.)

    [The young Indian Gentleman, Mr. H. RANJITSINHJI, has “secured
    his century” at Cricket no less than eleven times this
    season.]

O H.S.  Ranjit—­(spelling a wild venture is!) Wielder of willow, runner-up of “centuries”!  What’s in a name?  A name like RANJITSIN—­ (Can’t finish it, was foolish to begin!) How many miles was it you ran, O ran—­ (Bowled out again.  Am sorry I began!) In running out those hundreds, RANJITSINGHJ—­ (A man were a patched fool, a perfect ninny, Who’d try to spell that name, Ask Bully Bottom!) With such a name to carry, how you got ’em, O RANJ—­(that sounds like Orange!)—­those same “notches” Is quite a wonder.  Were they “bowls” or “cotches” That got you out at last, those times eleven?  (Where is grace now?  He has not scored one even, This season, though as close as ninety-nine to it.) Applause has greeted you; let me add mine to it, O ran-JIT-Sin-HJI! (Those last three letters What do they spell?) Orthography’s cold fetters Shan’t chill my admiration, smart young Hindoo!  Say, did you smite a sixer through a window, Like Slogger Thornton in his boyish prime, O RANJITSINHJI?  Got it this time!  That is, it spelt all right.  E’en admiration Shan’t tempt me to attempt pronunciation!  Eleven centuries we to Indian skill owe!  Will the East lick the West at its own “Willow?” Here’s luck to India and young ran—­Och, murther!  Ran-JIT-Sin-Sin—­How’s that! Out?  Can’t get further!
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“Oh no, we never Mention it.”—­The KENDALS have got a Play by a young American Author with the very uncompromising name of Dam.  He, or his Play, may be Dam good, or just the reverse:  still, if he does turn out to be the “big, big D,” then all the Dam family, such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Schiedam, and so forth, will be real proud of him.  Future Dams will revere him as their worthy ancestral sire, and American Dam may become naturalised among us (we have a lot of English ones quite a specialite in that line, so the French say), and become Dam-nationalised.  What fame if the piece is successful, and Dam is on every tongue!  So will it be too, if unsuccessful.  Englishmen will welcome the new American playright with the name unmentionable to ears polite, and will recognise in him, as the Dam par excellence, their brother, as one of the uncommon descendants of A-DAM.  By the way, the appropriate night for its production would be Christmas Eve.  Fancy the cries all over the House, calling for the successful Author!!

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[Illustration:  IMMUNITIES OF THE SEA-SIDE.