Part 2

Finding that neither of us is up to much talking (I have inadvertently opened an eye) he says, "Look here, I'll show you my travelling-bag," as if it was something to amuse children. This delights him immensely. He opens it and explains its compartments, tells how he shaves, what soap he uses, how he invented a peculiar pomade for travelling, and how he had thought out this bag and had everything made to fit into its place. He takes out everything, brushes, combs, razors, glass-pots, knives, brushes, one after the other, expatiating on their excellence as if he were a pedlar anxious to do a deal, and we were his casual, but likely, customers. Then finding our interest waning, he shuts it up, and saying that the best of travelling in a _lit-salon_ is that you can stretch your legs, he forthwith begins capering, asks JANE if he mayn't have the pleasure of the next waltz and so forth, until fortunately, he discovers the secret of the seat which pulls out and becomes a bed, and is so struck with the idea that he exclaims, "By Jove! this is first-rate! pillows, mattresses, everything! I've never slept in one of these! I haven't been to bed all night. You don't mind my taking forty winks--do you?"

O dear no--take eighty if he likes.

"Ah, then," he says in broken English, "I go to couch myself. I salute you the good morning, Mister and Missis. I have well envy of to sleep." And thank goodness in another minute the high-spirited Solicitor is fast asleep, and _not_ snoring.

Then we all drop off. At Montargis he awakes, breakfasts at the buffet: we breakfast in our _salon_. He returns, puffing another cigar, stronger and bigger than the previous one: but smoking yields to sleeping and his high spirits become less and less. After his second or third sleep he becomes hungry. The train is late. He becomes hungrier and hungrier. Again he smokes; but his cigars are dwindling in size and growing paler in colour. He calculates when the hour of dinner will be. He foresees that it will not be till past eight and we breakfasted at eleven. Hunger has deprived him of all his jokes, all his high spirits; he is hopelessly depressed, and preserves an almost sullen silence till we reach Clermont-Ferrand, when the sight of the Commissionnaire of the Hotel Continental slightly restores him, and as we get into the Omnibus he whispers to me feebly, "I say, let's cry '_Vive_ BOULANGER!'"

I beg him to hold his tongue, or the police will be down on him. I fancy this warning has its effect, in his present state of hunger, as he limits himself to whispering out of the window to any passer-by who happens to be in uniform, "_Vive_ BOULANGER!" but I am bound to say, nobody hears him, so finding the fun of the jest exhausted within the first ten minutes, he drops it, and once more collapses, shakes his head wearily over his wretched state, and expresses in pantomime how he is dying for something to eat. JANE and myself recognise Clermont-Ferrand and draw one another's attention to all points of interest, more or less incorrectly. Then, after noticing how familiar all the land-marks seem _en route_, we find we have been taken by a different road from the one we need to travel in order to avoid the dust.

Ha! Here is Doctor REM. Welcome to Royat! Same rooms, New Proprietor, but same Hotel in effect, it is the Continental. M. HALL, of what nationality I do not know, exerts himself to see that everything shall be right for everybody who has just arrived. There are several others by this train, all requiring special and individual attention, and all, somehow, getting it. New faces, but civility and readiness to oblige everywhere. The weather perfect!--perhaps a trifle too perfect. But Royat is high up, and, if it is hot here, what must it be down below at Vichy or at Aix! Dinner in the Restauration of the Hotel, where we pant for air because other visitors, chiefly French, of advanced years and in various stages of "The Cure," will not allow a door or window to be opened. We finish dinner, and hurry off for our coffee in the garden of the Casino Samie. End of first day.

P.S.--I said last week I could not find the English newspapers in the reading-room of the Cercle. I have since seen them, _Times_ and _Telegraph_. But the only one sold outside is apparently the _Morning Post_. Lord SALISBURY is coming.

* * * * *

THE INSURER'S PHRASE-BOOK.

THERE is no truth in the report that a whole Brigade of Firemen and Sixteen Fire-engines are now permanently encamped in Kensington Gardens Square, and that Captain SHAW is about to take furnished lodgings in the immediate neighbourhood of Westbourne Grove.

No, those men walking up and down the shop and eying everybody suspiciously are not shop-walkers, as you suppose. Four of them are detectives, with orders summarily to arrest any customer who looks at all like an incendiary, and the others are disguised Firemen.

I don't quite know what you mean by speaking of a "holocaust" in connection with the recent disastrous conflagration which destroyed five whole streets and a hundred lives, but no doubt the cost _will_ be enough to make anybody holloa!

"Why have we to hire a boat to take us from the garden-gate to our front-door?" Oh, because five million gallons of water were poured down our street by the Fire-Brigade men the day before yesterday, and the Main Drainage system is only equal to removing a few gallons at a time.

Naturally the Water Companies have taken advantage of this state of things to suggest to householders that, as they have so much water in their cellars, they can do without any in their cisterns, and to announce therefore that the supply will be discontinued for a week.

Is it a fact that Insurance Premiums in Bayswater now vary in proportion to the distance from Westbourne Grove?

How curious that "two huge columns of fire" should produce at least half a dozen equally huge columns of print!

No, as you say, this wall-paper is not pretty, and walking on hard concrete-floors is a little unpleasant at first; but then, you see, they are both absolutely incombustible.

The Fire-engine in the Hall is certainly a little in the way of the servants; but then what a comfort it is to feel that with this precaution, _and_ powerful hydrants laid on to each floor, _and_ sleeping in fire-proof beds with one's clothes on, _and_ having an outside iron stair-case to each window in the house, we really _are_ pretty safe against the next conflagration, in spite of the fact that we live just opposite a Universal Provider!

* * * * *

THE PRIVATE BANKER'S PAEAN.

(_Some way after Shakspeare._)

I KNOW a Bank whereto the poor man goes. If there too quickly his deposit grows, I fancy _our_ Monopoly may decline, No, no, at Thirty Pounds we'll draw the line, Nor let the Artisan, however thrifty, In the Post-Office pile an annual Fifty. We've floored them this time after a good fight, Government yields, to our extreme delight. We Private Banks are saved, by our teeth's skin. If they the thin end of the wedge slip in, By Jove, they'll open wide the public eyes, And smash up all our snug Monopolies.

* * * * *

AN AMUSEMENT SCARCELY LIKELY TO BE POPULAR WITH CHILDREN.--The Switchback.

* * * * *

* * * * *

FIRE AND WATER.

(_With Apologies to the Shades of the Authors of "Rejected Addresses."_)

THE Fire Fiend was curst with unquenchable thirst, And his gnomes to his aid having beckoned, From Cornhill to Clapham he flew at a burst, And furious flames soon arose from the first, And volumes of smoke from the second.

The Fire Fiend was hungry as Moloch of old, And knew not the meaning of pity. The new _Edax Rerum_; voraciously bold, His maw a red gulf that was ready to hold The calcined remains of a City.

That Phlegethon-gorge might have served as the grave Of man and his works altogether; But SHAW, the new Life-guardsman, swordless but brave, Was ever at hand to extinguish and save, And hold the Red Ogre in tether.

The Fire Fiend as usual went at full pelt, But SHAW at his heels followed faster, Of leather well tanned were SHAW'S boots and his belt, And his helmet was brazen for fear it should melt, And the Fire Demon knew him as master.

The Fire Fiend possessed a most hideous phiz, Polyphemus's was not more horrid, Unkempt and unwashed was that visage of his, For water that touched it went off with a whiz! It _was_ so tremendously torrid.

But SHAW on his enemy kept a cool eye, Of vigilant valour the symbol. Affrighted no more by the Fire Demon's cry Than the squeak of a rat; if the Fire Fiend was spry, His opponent was equally nimble.

For Water, Fire's foe, at his best freely flows, And the Fire Demon dares not to linger Whenever his enemy turns on the hose; He stands in much fear of this foeman and those Who flock at the lift of his finger.

The Fire Fiend has schemes, it is credibly said, For laying half London in ashes; But Water--and SHAW--are the things he must dread, And at sight of an engine he shakes his red head, And his teeth like a lunatic gnashes.

But his fire-gnomes he multiplies lately so fast That the task of repressing them's trying; The flare that they make and the heat that they cast Are so great that the Fiend seems resolved in one blast To set the Metropolis frying.

He blazes and blazes; SHAW gallops to snatch His prey from its desperate danger; But the Demon's a deuce of a rider to catch, And it taxes brave SHAW to continue a match For the fiery noctivagant ranger.

And if London is wise she assistance will call, For the Water King needs the alliance Of hands that are sturdy and limbs that are tall, To give the Fire Demon a rattling good fall, And set all his imps at defiance.

How often his fiery flame-banner outrolled O'er London our bosoms has shaken! The Water King never relaxes his hold, But many a time, if the truth must be told, We have just, only _just_, saved our bacon.

The Fire-Fiend's a foe of redoubtable might, And it takes a stout fighter to floor him; Yet, in spite of his flames, the ignipotent sprite Has been licked up to now by our fire-quelling knight, Who strides so triumphantly o'er him.

Look! look! 'tis our Water-King; doesn't he stand Like Michael, o'ercoming the Dragon? Oh! champion braver than he and his band Of brazen-helmed heroes ne'er fought hand to hand, Or emptied a flask or a flagon.

His sword is an axe, and his spear is a hose, But Paladins famous in story For gallantest charges and swashingest blows, Though demons and dragons they met as their foes Were ne'er more deserving of glory.

Back, lurid in air, for another regale, The Fire-Fiend who's down but not settled, With fresh bellowsed flame will return without fail, And help to oppose him he'll thankfully hail Our Water-King manly and mettled.

He is down, but not dead, and his dreadful red head He again will be lifting to-morrow. 'Tis Hydrant 'gainst Hydra, and shall it be said That for lack of assistance this demon so dread Shall doom the great City to sorrow?

This fierce All-devourer is hungry as Time, And would wolf all the world as food-fuel. A champion we have--is his pose not sublime?-- And so let us help him--to fail were a crime-- To give the Fire Demon his gruel.

Fierce tyrant is Fire, and his foes are too few For a Fiend so alert and so furious, Would London be safe, gallant SHAW and his crew She must manfully back, and she'll find it won't do In this instance to be too penurious.

* * * * *

* * * * *

ROBERT AT THE MINISTERIAL BANKWET.

HER Majesty's Ministers, so far as I understands these sollem matters, don't seam to have been having a partickler cumferal time of it lately. BROWN, who's quite a grate Pollytishun, or at any rate thinks hisself so, which I spose is pritty much the same thing, says, in his wulgar way, as they have been and had 2 or 3 slaps in the face lately as has a good deal staggered 'em, but in course he was ony speaking paragorically, as the chymists says, so I don't suppose as they was werry much hurt by 'em, and they most suttenly didn't show not no sines of 'em when, on Wensday last, they all marched in in triumph to receeve from the Rite Honnerabel the LORD MARE the proud assurance that in his Rite Honnerabel opinion, and in that of the Grand Old Copperashun over witch he so royally presides, they had nobly done their dooty, and well herned the werry hiest reward as he had it in his power to bestow, wiz., a reel Manshun Ouse Bankwet!

Praps if there was one of the werry Noble and Rite Honnerabel Gestes as didn't look quite at his hease, it was the forren Gent as is the CHANCESELLER of the XCHECKER, and in course that's werry heasily accounted for. Weather men bes Tories, or weather they be Libberals, they all likes men as sales strait and sticks to their cullers, and, if it's posserbel, nales 'em to the Marst, and never ewen dreams of bawling 'em down coz the weather's a looking jest a little dusty. Howsumever these sollem thorts ain't quite the thing for such reel jowial Bankwets as that of Wensday, so I banishes 'em hence without no blessing.

The grate Conserwatif Cheefs seemed to thorowly enjoy the change, and to sum on 'em it must have bin a change indeed. Tork about Conserwatifs not liking change, how about changing the Ouse of Commons, with their spessimens of the Wulgar Tung, and their most rude questions, and their imperent mocking larfter, for the splendid Manshun Ouse, and its gorgeous Bankwet, and sitch an arty recepshun from onered Aldermen and uncommon Councilmen as amost broke sum of the new wine-glasses with shaking!

Puncshally as the sillybrated Manshun Ouse Clock struck harf-past seven the Prime Minister hentered the Hall, so there was no Hed Cook a cussing and a swearing in the hot regions below at his _Chef-doovers_ being spylt with waiting. It was a speshally fine dinner, the Petty Gallatins o' aspect, and the Wenson, being about the finest as even I ever tasted.

The pore Epping Forest Depputy got pretty well charfed about where the Wenson came from, but he bore it like a man, and arsked for another slice. I was pleased to notice a great improvement in the way as the sacred Loving Cup was passed round, speshally among the Marshonesses and Cowntesses, there wasn't above 2 or 3 on 'em as wood grasp it with their bootiful little wite hands insted of gracefoolly taking off the cover and showing off their dimond rings wen it was hoffered to 'em.

As for the speeches, I thinks as the LORD MARE has about spylt us in that respec. His is allers short and sharp, and spoken out like a man, but most of the others was so slow and so dredfull careful, and so preshus long, that BROWN and me both agreed as they was amost sollum enuff for poor Ministers as is out, rayther than for jolly Ministers as is in.

We was all werry much shocked, speshally us Hed Waiters, at hearing from the LORD MARE as how as sumbody at Guildhall had said as all militerry men was Imposters, and all naval men Tom Fools! But the Fust Lord of the Admiralty gave it him pretty hot in his absense, and said if as any tomfoolery was a goin on anywheres he knew who'd be a taking the lead in it! So Sir WILFULL LAWSON will probberbly be a leetle more carefuller in future.

Lord SORLSBURY made a werry long speech, but all I coud make out of it was two rayther himportant fax. Fustly, that there isn't to be no grate Uropean War until after the 9th of nex Nowember, so I feels rayther sorry for pore Mr. Alderman DE KEYSER, and Seccondly, that if there is to be one anywheres, it will werry possibly be too near home to be pleasant, which I for one was werry sorry to hear, but I hardly thort that he meant it or he would not have made us all larf so by telling us, that the Members of the Ouse of Commons treated it like we men does our wives, that is, we has our own opinion on 'em in private, but we don't allow not nothink to be said against 'em in Public. Ah! my Lord Markiss, how one touch of Natur makes us all kings! Who'd ever have thort that a werry Prime Minister would have been troubled with a similar complaint to that as so offen trubbles a pore Hed Waiter.

Mr. GOSHEN apollergised for the absense of the pore 1st Lord of the Tresury, who was quite nocked up with setting up so late.

And so ended the last of the long seris of grand Bankwets of the rain of Lord Mare HANSON, a seris to be rememberd for many long years by all on us, as combining with all the reglar old lot, such a wariety of noveltys to all sorts and condishuns of sillybrated persons, as has never bin ekalled afore, and as will and down his name to a werry remote posteriority as HANSON the Magnifisent!

ROBERT.

* * * * *

CHANNEL TALK.

(_Echoes from the Naval Manoeuvres._)

"WHAT they're at I can't guess," Observes Dungeness, "Then the plan you've not read," Responds Beachy Head, "FREMANTLE went right on: I saw him," says Brighton, "Oh, that's all my eye!" Ejaculates Rye, "Well, he came down my way," Remarks Pegwell Bay, "Yes, and HEWETT'S his target; That's quite clear," adds Margate, "It seems silly to me," Sneers Westgate-on-Sea, "Humph! I think it quite real: That I do!" replies Deal, "And they think so on shore," Says the Light at the Nore, "Well, now it's all over, Thank goodness!" says Dover.

* * * * *

A NOTE FULL OF GAIETY.--_Loyal Love_, the new piece at the Gaiety, requires a little compression. If the Authoress would only reduce it to one Act, and have that single scene supplied with a few catchy songs, there really is no reason why it should not serve some day as a very effective _lever de rideau_ at the Savoy, as a capital foil to a Comic Opera. For the rest, Mrs. BASIL POTTER has greatly improved, Mr. WILLARD is (as usual) excellent, but the remainder of the company are unimportant. Scenery good, and dresses adequate.

* * * * *

* * * * *

A BALLADE OF THE HOUSE.

(_Sung apologetically at a recent Banquet._)

"You do not know the number of muzzled Ciceros who are sitting in the House of Commons, men who have come from the constituencies conscious of their power, anxious to render service to the State."--_Mr. Goschen at the Mansion House._

WHAT if garrulity be rife, And what if bald debate, Spun out in empty Party strife, Has sealed the Session's fate! What if the tap-room jest has sped, And hot retort has stirred, While threats to punch a Member's head Have been distinctly heard! Ah, what?--If but the House disclose A score of Muzzled Ciceros!

What if things are not as they were Some twenty years ago; And manners that might make one stare Are now thought _comme il faut_; What if the tongue of Billingsgate, The grace of Seven Dials, Now modestly subserve the State? There's one at them who smiles, And points to where there sit in rows A score of Muzzled Ciceros!

* * * * *

NAUTICAL SUPERSTITION.--Mr. DAVID JONES, of the Welsh Mercantile Marine, Shipowner, proposed to call a vessel recently completed the _Eisteddfod_. A Saxon seaman objected to that as an unlucky name, because any ship so denominated would be sure to spring a leek.

* * * * *

All the Difference.

"Every Poet hates to be called 'Mr.'"--_Globe._

FORMALITY sometimes is Scorn's twin sister-- The prefix to the Poet means disaster; But though no Bard would be addressed as "Mister," How they all love to be addressed as "Master!"

* * * * *

WHY HE WENT.

SOME doubts having been expressed in influential quarters as to the genuine character of the Manifesto alleged to have been recently put forth to the European Powers by Prince FERDINAND on his entry into Bulgaria, the following, whatever subsequent changes may have been diplomatically introduced into it prior to publication, may be confidently regarded as an authentic transcript of that document in its original form.

_To the Crowned Heads of Europe, and others whom it does or does not concern, greeting, &c._

Be it known to those who have been interested in, and somewhat mystified by our recent movements, that we, FERDINAND THE FIRST, by the voice of the Regents, and the will of the Great Sobranje, elected Monarch of Bulgaria, wishing to make clear and explain why that we, having originally held aloof from any idea of acceptance of the post, and even having snubbed the Deputation who came to offer it to us in the name of the Bulgarian people, have apparently at the eleventh hour, to the exasperation of Russia, the consternation of the Porte, the indifference of Germany, the annoyance of Austria, the chagrin of France and the hearty amusement of England, suddenly turned round, and accompanied by a small portmanteau and a suite of two, accepted the situation and started on a penny steam-boat for Sofia, wish to make statement as follows:--

Having discovered upon inquiry that the palace required re-papering and was sadly out of repair, with both gas and water-rates seven quarters in arrear, while it appeared that both the throne and crown would have to be hired, and possibly only a lame omnibus horse available for our use at the Coronation procession, and taking in regard the fact that no guarantee was forthcoming that our allowance from the Civil List would touch anything like L150 a-year, we at first reluctantly decided, spite its undeniably flattering nature, to decline the offer so spontaneously made to us. And we conveyed as much to the delegates who received the news crestfallen, and were about to depart in sulky silence when a telegram arrived from Sofia of such an encouraging and startling description, that it seemed, to us at least, to put the question in an entirely fresh and original light, and in one that we felt might make us waver in our determination. It simply announced the fact that the Government, never doubting of our acceptance of the crown, had already taken the bull by the horns, and ordered _at a local Ready-Made Clothing Establishment a complete brand-new Uniform_ for us to wear the moment we set our foot on Bulgarian soil. "Buttons and all?" we asked. "Buttons and all!" was the reply. This gracious and patriotic, and quite unexpected act profoundly touched us. Indeed, it decided us; and when it was further intimated to us that _the bill would not be sent in to us_, but go to increase the deficit in the forthcoming Budget, we did not hesitate, but accepted the full responsibilities of the situation, and informed the Deputation that, spite the hostile attitude of Europe, we would go to Sofia, and at least "try it on."