Gertrude (passing him “The Morning Post").  Is it not enough that the price of butter is up another threepence this blessed day, and the wind rising, rising, and the rain falling, falling?

Mr. S.-H. It is destroyed we shall all be entirely.

Cyril (gazing into the depths of his egg).  There was a strange queer dream I was after having the night that has gone.  It was on the rocks I was....

Mr. S.-H. (glaring at the market reports).  It is on the rocks we shall all be.

Cyril. ... on the rocks I was by the sea-shore ...

Dora (slightly hysterically).  With the wind rising, rising?

Cyril (nodding). ... and the rain falling, falling.  And a woman of the chorus drove up in a taxi, and the man that had the driving of it was eating an orange.  The woman came and sat by the side of me, and the peroxide in her hair made it gleam like the pale gold coins that were in the banks before the Great War (more dreamily).  Never a word said she when I hung a chain of cold, cold sausages about her neck, but her eyes were shining, shining, and into my hands she put a tin of corned beef.  And it is destroyed I was with the love of her, and would have kissed her lips but I saw the park-keeper coming, coming out of the sea for tickets, and I fled from the strange queer terror of it, and found myself by a lamp-post in Hackney Wick with the wind rising, rising, and the rain falling, falling.

    [He stops.  The others stare at him and at one another in piteous
    inquiry.  The women begin keening. Mr. S.-H. seizes the remaining egg
    and cracks it viciously.

Mr. S.-H. (falling back in his chair).  Damnation!

[The air is filled with a pungent matter-of-fact odour. Dora, holding her handkerchief to her nose, rushes valiantly at the offender and hurls it out of the window on to a flower-bed.  The SYNGE spell is broken.

* * * * *

Mr. Punch begs to thank the seven hundred and forty-three correspondents who have so thoughtfully drawn his attention to the too familiar fact that “there’s many a slip ’twixt the Cup and the LIPTON.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE BLUE RIBBON OF THE SEA.

COLUMBIA.  “YOUR HEALTH, SIR THOMAS, AND BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME.”

SIR THOMAS LIPTON. “’BUT LEAVE A KISS WITHIN THE CUP AND [very tactfully]
I’LL NOT ASK FOR WINE.’”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Professional (to self-made man having his first lesson).  “YOU’VE HIT THIS ONE HARD ENOUGH, SIR, AND NO MISTAKE.  WHY, I’VE NEVER SEEN A BALL GASHED LIKE THAT BEFORE.”

Self-made Man. “WELL, LAD, AH MOSTLY DO GET RESULTS FROM ONYTHING AH TAKES OOP.”]