“COME UNDER THE UMBRELLA, JACK, IT’S BEGUN TO RAIN, AND YOU’LL CATCH COLD, AND MAMMA’LL BE VEXED!”

“POOH!  AS IF SALT WATER EVER GAVE ONE COLD!”]

* * * * *

“PUNSCH”

(IN THE READING-ROOM OF THE BERNERHOF.)

Although thy name is wrongly spelt
Upon thy case, what joy I felt
To find a place where thou hast dwelt,

                    My Punsch!

Yet wit and wisdom, even thine,
Can’t wake up Berne, where folks supine
All go to bed at half-past nine,

                    My Punsch!

What art or jokes could entertain,
Such sleepy people?  True, they feign
It’s later, for they say “halb zehn,”

                    My Punsch!

My German “Punsch,” what gender thine? 
They who accept, likewise decline,
“Das Weib” might feminine assign—­

                    Die Punsch!

No matter which, if I behold
Thy pages, worth their weight in gold—­
It’s true they’re more than three weeks old,

                    My Punsch!

* * * * *

AN ODD FELLOW OUT.—­The Church-breaking thief (vide the Standard’s provincial news) who was arrested at Oswestry (fitting that a Church-thief should have been arrested by Os-Westry-men—­which sounds like a body of mounted ecclesiastical police), explained that he was a “monumental mason of Dublin.”  Perhaps the Jury will find him monu-mentally deranged.

* * * * *

HEALTH AND HOPPINESS.

    [It is reported that the latest move is for ladies to combine
    profit and pleasure by going “hopping.”]

  Fair Woman longs for novelty,
    Her daily task is apt to cloy her,
  The pastimes that were wont to be
    Diverting now do but annoy her. 
  The common joys of life are spent
    So tired of tennis, shooting, shopping,
  She turns in her despair to Kent,
    And tries her ’prentice hand at hopping.

  Now girls whom you would scarce believe
    Would not turn up their nose at soiling
  Their dainty hands, to dewy eve
    From early morn keep ever toiling. 
  There’s ETHEL of the golden hair
    Who flutters through existence gaily
  (Her father is a millionnaire),
    Hops hard and does her twelve hours daily.

  Then pretty MAUD, with laughing eyes,
    Who hardly knew what daily wage meant,
  To everybody’s great surprise
    Proceeds to cut this, that engagement. 
  Amid the vines she daily goes,
    And picks till weary fingers tingle,
  The sweetest music now she knows
    Is hearing hard-earned sovereigns jingle.