Part 3

Tom the Golfer's a wonderful man, For though seventy-five, up to now, is his span, At hitting a ball or at laying a plan, He's a clipper is TOM the Golfer! He can play the game, when not laying new links. The Golf-world of a brave testimonial thinks, And _Punch_ inquires, with his choicest of winks, "Now, Golfing-world, what offer?"

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"Cheer, Boys, Cheer!"

(_Ad Druriolanum, equitem gratias agens ad magistrum antiquum Henricum Russellum_.)

"Cheer, boys, cheer! No more of idle sorrow. Courage, brave hearts, will bear us on our way!" Tickets I've got for Drury Lane to-morrow. Cheer, boys, cheer! I am going to see that play!

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Ladies desirous of "trying their luck" in the matter of marrying a title, had better turn their attention towards St. Petersburg, where a French Count has made the novel proposal of starting a lottery--with himself as the prize. A million tickets are to be issued at one rouble each. The winner is to receive, in addition to an aristocratic husband, the sum of 250,000 roubles; the Count himself will pocket a quarter of a million; and the remaining half of the money is to be divided between charity and the promoters of the "raffle." In the Parisian parlance of the boulevards, this enterprising nobleman is decidedly a "roublard."

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ROUNDABOUT READINGS.

I learn from _The Freeman's Journal_ that "Lord WINDSOR, who presided at the Librarians' Congress, is an all-round man. In addition to his interest in libraries and the support which he has given to struggling Tory papers, he is a first-class lawn-tennis player who has narrowly escaped playing for the amateur finals, and a cricketer who carries about with him still the marks of a blow which he received on the nose in the playing fields of Eton College." I assume, though the fact is not expressly stated, that the blow was inflicted by a cricket ball, and not by the hostile fist of a fellow Etonian. It appears, then, that in his early youth there was about Lord WINDSOR'S nose a something, a bridge, an angle, _que sçais-je_, which forbad the idea of complete roundness. The providential arrival of a sort of homoeopathic cricket ball removed the protuberance, and now Lord WINDSOR is _totus teres atque rotundus_. And, what is more, he still carries the marks about with him. Gallant President of the Librarians' Congress!

* * * * *

As a small boy at Eton Lord WINDSOR, I hear, Played a good game of cricket, but failed as a sphere. But behold, he grows rounder, the older he grows, With a ball to each eye _plus_ a ball on his nose.

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West Bromwich has my profound sympathy. I read in a Birmingham paper that "there is a complete deadlock with regard to the mayoralty of West Bromwich for the coming year. The deputation appointed at the meeting in August have waited upon several eligible gentlemen to try and induce them to accept office, but without any success up to the present. Alderman ROLLASON has declined, and Councillor BUSHELL will not undertake the duties, and the committee are now doing their best to induce Councillor SLATER to take the position a second time." By this time, let us hope, the difficulty may have been removed, for imagination boggles at the idea of a town without a mayor.

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West Bromwich's Committee-men, they fairly tore their hair. In all West Bromwich's expanse they could not find a Mayor. Each deputy with anguish notes his prematurely shed lock, But, dash it, what are men to do confronted by a deadlock? Each portly Alderman his Aldermanic self excuses, In vain they try the Councillors, for every one refuses. Declined with thanks by ROLLASON, the honour next they proffer To BUSHELL, who, in turn, declines their most obliging offer. Next, moving on, they tempt again their ex-Mayor, Mr. SLATER, "Be thou," they cry, with emphasis, "our mayoral dictator. With badge and chain and gown of fur it's not a paltry billet; The breach is ready-made," they say; "step into it and fill it. A vacuum a nuisance is, we ask thee to abate it; Our edifice is roofless now, climb up and promptly slate it."

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If Mr. SLATER should ultimately decline the proffered mayoralty, the only suggestion I can make is that somebody should be pricked for the office. I don't quite know what it means, but I know that every year some forty estimable gentlemen are pricked for the shrievalty of their respective counties. One after another they arise in the Court of Justice in which this terrible ceremony takes place and declare that there are circumstances which absolutely forbid them to accept the post of High Sheriff. One pleads a reduced rental, another asks to be excused on the ground of failing health, but the plea is allowed in very few cases, and in the end most of them are reluctantly pricked. The new cook on board ship in CHARLES DICKENS'S _American Notes_ was boxed up with the Captain standing over him, and was forced to roll out pastry which he protested, being of a highly bilious nature, it was death to him merely to look at. But he had to roll it out all the same. So it ought to be with an unwilling candidate for a mayoralty.

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Let us be just to our American cousins in spite of boat-racing and yacht-racing _fiascos_. There are certain things that they obviously order much better than we do. For instance, when the silly season presses they just mark out one of their prominent literary men and have him attacked by highwaymen. At least this is what lately happened to Mr. RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, for I read in _Harper's Weekly_ that "a considerable number of daily journals of average veracity in New York and Boston published accounts of Mr. DAVIS'S encounter, differing to such a degree in details that each paper seemed to derive its information from an independent source. The very variation of the reports was an indication of a basis to the original tale: but after all, the despatch which carried most conviction was one only four lines long, in which Mr. DAVIS was quoted as intimating that some industrious writer had lied about him."

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Notice again how magnificently they manage an earthquake. Little more than a week ago a telegram, emanating from Tegucigalpa in Honduras, was published in the _New York Herald_. In this it was stated that "mail advices from Yetapan announced that a terrible earthquake had occurred in that section of the country." There were elaborate details. Three hundred persons perished. Four thousand people from the outlying villages flocked into the city. During the night "sheets of flame appeared at different points in the north-west rising to immense heights. A church tower crashed down, carrying with it the roofs of three houses. Just before daylight a prolonged shock rocked the entire town as though it were a cradle, and on the mountain side quantities of grazing cattle were engulfed by lava. At Covajunca thirty-seven houses were laid in ruins: at Cayuscat twenty-nine houses collapsed. A later despatch states that 353 bodies have already been recovered." In short, this earthquake was carried out in a style of lavish completeness, and no expense was spared to make it a record convulsion. It is unnecessary to add that it never happened. There wasn't a single quake in the whole of Honduras. Like _Falstaff's_ assailants, and like the highwaymen that waylaid Mr. RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, it wore a suit of buckram. And of all qualities of buckram the American is unquestionably the best.

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It appears, moreover, that CAIN and ABEL lived in Central America, and that the mausoleum of ABEL is still to be seen in Yucatan, with all the inscriptions complete. Somehow or other a migration to Egypt then took place, and the Sphinx was erected by ABEL'S widow as a monument to her murdered husband. All this has been discovered by M. LE PLONGEON; and, to confirm the truth of the story, Mr. W. T. STEAD is to publish it, bound in buckram, of course. "JULIA'S" share in this discovery is not stated, but there can be no doubt that she must have been hovering round.

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I am told that Cheshire cheese is in a bad way; that the price of it has fallen so much as to make the total disappearance of Cheshire cheese extremely likely. At the same time it is said that Cheshire cheese is going down because the farmers wilfully produce an inferior article. It may be so, though I hope it is not. But if it is, why delay the punishment? To produce inferior cheese is as bad as robbery with violence; and a dozen or so with a Cheshire cat ought to prove an effective deterrent to the most hardened offender.

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TRAVELLER'S CONVERSATION BOOK.

(_For English Tourists visiting Sebastopol._)

I can assure you that I had no idea of treating Russia with disrespect.

I was not born at the time of the Crimean War, and know nothing whatever of the battles of the Alma, Inkermann, and Balaclava.

I really only require breakfast, and have no intention of sketching the walls of that fortress.

I was asking the waiter to clean my boots, and not for information concerning the strength of the garrison.

I was not aware that the place had been declared a naval port, and was therefore sacred from foreign invasion.

As a matter of fact, I was not searching for torpedoes, but only taking a sea bath.

I was as innocent in thought and intention as a _baigneuse_ at Margate.

I am sorry that it has been necessary to confiscate my Gladstone bag, as it contains my linen and toilet requisites.

Certainly my bath sponge is not an explosive.

The programme of _Cheer, Boys, Cheer_, which is said to have been found in my bag, is of no political significance.

It certainly was not intended to create a riot at Moscow.

It surely is unnecessary to cover me with chains.

I really must protest against being detained in a dungeon three feet square, in lieu of occupying a comfortable room in the hotel _au troisième_.

It seems to me harsh treatment to deprive me of all my goods and chattels, and then refuse to allow me to communicate with the British Ambassador.

Well, of course, if I must go I must, and I suppose I ought to thank you for securing my ticket.

But surely you have made a mistake. I wished a ticket for Hampstead.

Very sorry that you should tell me that _you_ are right----from this I gather I am booked (without appeal) to Siberia!