Mr. LLOYD GEORGE is always ready to give The Times tink-for-tat.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Guest (to Fellow-Guest at garden-party who has offered to introduce her to well-known Socialist).  “I DON’T THINK SO, THANKS.  HE LOOKS RATHER FEARSOME.”

Fellow-Guest. “MY DEAR, HE’S ONE OF THE FEW DECENT PEOPLE HERE—­BELONGS TO AN OLD ENGLISH LABOURING FAMILY.”]

* * * * *

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

    (Carefully imitated from the best models, except that it has somehow
    got into metre and rhyme.)

  Four-and-ninety English winters
    Having flecked my hair with snows,
  I am ready for the printers,
    And my publishers suppose
  That these random recollections
    Of a mid-Victorian male,
  Owing to my high connections,
    Ought to have a fairish sale.

  Comrades of my giddy zenith,
    Gazing back in retrospect,
  I should say Lord Brixton (Kenneth)
    Had the brightest intellect;
  Though of course no age enfeebles
    James Kircudbright’s mental vim
  (Now the seventh Duke of Peebles)—­
    I have lots of tales of Jim.

  We were gilded youths together
    In our Foreign Office days;
  Used to fish and tramp the heather
    At his uncle’s castle, “Braes;”
  I recall our wild elation
    One day when we stole the hat,
  At the Honduras Legation,
    Of a Danish diplomat.

  James had scarcely any vices,
    His career was made almost
  When the Guatemalan crisis
    Caused him to resign his post;
  He possessed a Gordon setter
    On whose treatment by a vet
  I once wrote The Times a letter
    Which has not been published yet.

  Politics were dry and dusty,
    Still they had their moods of fun,
  As, for instance, when the crusty
    Yet delightful Viscount Bunn
  Broke into the Second Reading
    Of a Church Endowment Bill
  With a snore of perfect breeding
    Which convulsed the Earl of Brill.

  Through my kinship with the Gortons
    I was much at Widnes Square;
  People of the first importance
    Often came to luncheon there;
  GLADSTONE, DIZZY, even older
    Statesmen used to throng the hall;
  PALMERSTON once touched my shoulder—­
    Which one I do not recall.

  Then I went to routs and dances,
    Ah, how fine they were, and how
  Different from the dubious prances
    That the young indulge in now;
  There I first encountered Kitty,
    Told the girl I was a dunce,
  But implored her to have pity,
    And she said she would, at once.

  Eh, well, well!  I must not linger
    On those glorious halcyon days;
  Time with his relentless finger
    Brings me to the second phase;
  Politics were always creeping
    Like a ghost across my view—­
  I contested Market Sleeping
    In the Spring of Seventy-Two.