PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 109.

July 20, 1895.

TO A LADY HUMORIST.

Your laugh would chase away the blues,
Your smile is always sunny,
One must be gay—who could refuse?
Your "mission" is just to amuse;
Discarding all blue-stocking views,
You fancy what is funny.

You have no fads on Man's Descent
From something quite atomic,
On Diet, Disestablishment,
On Dress, Diminishing of Rent,
Divorce or Dockyard Discontent—
You seek for something comic.

You wear no hygienic shoe,
Your dress is never frightful,
Your sense of humour makes you too
Alive to what you should not do,
You laugh at folks, not they at you,
You write what's quite delightful.

So laugh, and always make us gay;
Stern women are alarming,
The boldest men, I need not say,
Are simply scared by such as they,
You do not bore us, anyway.
Your conversation's charming.

SPORTING EVENT—A RECORD.

She Won the Sweep!

Unmetrical Adaptation of Robbie Burns' celebrated Line to the "New Woman," whether in male attire on or off Bicycle, in her Club, driving her trap, &c., &c.—"A woman's a woman for a' that."

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

Of Mr. Athol Mayhew's History of Punch the Baron can at present say nothing, no copy of this work having as yet been brought to Our Booking Office, and without a ticket-of-leave, or ticket-for-leaves, granted by Mr. Punch himself, per the Baron de B.-W., the book of Mahu ("Modo he is called and Mahu," as Shirley Brooks used to quote from King Lear) will not have received the "imprimatur." Already it appears, as we read in a letter from Mr. Henry Spielmann (who, if any man living knows anything about Mr. Punch's history, is the Punchian Biographer and Historian par excellence and "by appointment") to the Daily Chronicle, Friday, July 12, that in Mr. Mayhew's book there are numerous errors on important matters. "Mayhew-manum est errare." But "Herr Von Spielmann will put him right in his forthcoming book," says

The Judicious
Baron de Book-Worms.

Covent Garden Opera Proverb.—"When in doubt play Faust."

"Happy Thought!" (Apropos of a recent case in the Marylebone Police Court).—What a good title for an old-fashioned pantomime in the East End (where the real pantomimes used to be): "Harlequin and the Mysterious Manx Mannikins; or, Snapshot and the Demon Camera!"

BRIGGS, OF BALLIOL.

Part II.

Two years passed, and never a syllable could I learn of Briggs. Then I met Trotter of Trinity at Piccadilly Circus. "By the way," said he, "I suppose you have heard about poor old Briggs?" "No!" I cried. "What of him?" "Oh, I thought you would be sure to know, or I would have broken it to you more gently." "Why?" I asked, with apprehension. "Has anything happened to him?" "Well," he replied, with some hesitation, "I—er—I hardly like to tell you. You were such a friend of his." "You don't mean to say that he is——?" "Dead? No, poor fellow, not dead exactly, but worse than that, I fear. He has become a New Man, you see." I looked at Trotter in bewilderment. "Why, you see, he is married—yes, he married the O'Gress, you know. Poor Briggs! I saw him yesterday, and, upon my word, I should scarcely have known him. But go and see him yourself; you will never believe my story."

Trotter wrote me the address on a card, and the next day I called. The maid looked somewhat surprised when I asked for Mr. Briggs. He was at home, oh, yes, he was at home, but she didn't know whether he could see me or not, as he was feeding the baby. This announcement rather staggered me, but I pulled myself together sufficiently to assure her that I was an old friend of Mr. Briggs; and, on learning this, she asked me to walk upstairs. "This is the nursery," she said, when we had reached the topmost storey. "You will find Mr. Briggs inside."

I opened the door, and what a scene greeted me! There was Briggs, my old friend Briggs, the gallant Briggs of Balliol, rocking ceaselessly to and fro the while he crooned in a low monotone to a bundle of pins and flannel that lay cradled in his arms. I sprang forward to grip him by the hand. He laid his finger on his lips, and in an agonised whisper murmured, "Sh!—You'll wake the baby!" I controlled myself, and sank into a chair, to which he motioned me. Briggs hushed the infant anxiously for a minute or two until it was well asleep; then he turned to me, and with a sickly smile whispered, "I'm glad to see you, Robinson, but please talk very gently, for fear of waking the Cutsababoo."

It grieved me to hear poor Briggs talk in this fashion, but there were a thousand questions I was burning to ask him.

"Oh, Briggs, why did you leave Balliol so suddenly?" "Sh!" he answered, looking nervously round him. "She took me away." "And why did you never write to anyone?" "Sh! She forbade me." "Forbade you?" "Yes, yes, indeed. Oh, Robinson, you do not know my wife!" I was inwardly thanking my stars that I had not this honour when Briggs, overcome with his emotion, suddenly flung up his arms and covered his face with his hands. The action upset the equilibrium of the baby, which rolled off his lap, fell on the floor, and awoke with a scream. With a cry of dismay Briggs caught up the bundle, and tossed it violently up and down, addressing it the while in such intelligible terms as these—"And did it wake its darling ducky Cutsababoo, it did! It was a naughty cruel Dada, it was!"

It would be hard to say which made the greater noise, Briggs or the baby; but Briggs had the staying power, and after a fight the baby gave it up. Briggs gazed at it as it lay exhausted in his arms, then turning to me, he said, "I think the Cutsababoo has done crying now,