PARLIAMENTARY "LIBERTY MEN" COMING ABOARD AFTER TEN DAYS' LEAVE.

A SONG OF SPRING.

OH, painters, you who always

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come

Before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March "-till May-with some
Atrocious smell of paint, and make

The streets in such a shocking state, you
Are quite a nuisance-how I hate you!
How can I wear in peace a neat,

Silk hat, and coat of decent black,
When, passing you in any street,

Your paint may tumble on my back,
Or I may smash, which might be sadder,
My hat against your sloping ladder?
How can the spring delight my mind,
How can I like the budding trees,
The butterflies of any kind?

A Painted Lady could not please
In any way the mental man,
Were I a painted gentleman.
How can I like the balmy air,

How dream of violets in bloom,
When paint-pots swing aloft and scare
With visions of impending doom?

I'm mad and hot-quite crimson madderWith dodging each successive ladder.

TO A BANTLING.

(Lines written to a Lady who "Banted.") SOME rhymes to make you laugh? I can't Drop, Wegg-like, into rhyme instanter. It's easiness itself to bant,

Comparatively hard to banter.

The many pretty things I'd say,

The pleasant thoughts I'd like to utter,

I may not do, it seems to-day

You scorn the bare idea of butter!

"Sweets to the sweet." Not long ago,

Why chocolates-you'd gladly greet them.

Now you've abandoned them, and so

You never (hardly ever) eat them.

To see you drink hot water-that

The very stoniest heart would soften,

You evidently think it flat,

You're in it-aren't you-much too often?

Yet whether 9st. 12, as when

You weighed that day at Margate Station,

Or 10st. 7, or 7st. 10,

I can't pretend to indignation.

To bant from early morn till late

May be, of course, supremely right of you; But if you feel oppressed by weight,

Would it not do if we made light of you?

Though that I swear I will not do,

Let others, if they like, make bold to

I merely write these rhymes for you,
I always do just what I'm told to!

But if you cease to peak and pine

(For Time the Banting Conscience hardens), You will not fail to drop a line

My chambers are in Temple Gardens.

SEXOMANIA.

By an Angry Old Buffer. "WHEN ADAM delved and EVE span," No one need ask which was the man. Bicycling, footballing, scarce human, All wonder now "Which is the woman?" But a new fear my bosom vexes; To-morrow there may be no sexes! Unless, as end to all the pother, Each one in fact becomes the other. E'en then perhaps they'll start amain A-trying to change back again! Woman was woman, man was man, When ADAM delved and EVE span. Now he can't dig and she won't spin, Unless 'tis tales all slang and sin?

"WHAT IS IT, NURSE?"

My eyes are wet with dewy tears,
That will not cease to flow.
Like MARY'S little lamb, my grief
Somehow is sure to go
Wherever I do. It all comes

From something that I've read,
The ostrich that I loved so well
Fell ill, and now is dead.
"Magnificent" indeed, it was.
I never ceased to take
A pride in its magnificence
For its own special sake.
But added unto this there was
An extra joy. I mean
That loyalty asks ardour for
A present from the QUEEN.

Oh! ostrich, I have often thought
Your smile childlike and bland,
And speculated if it's true
That right down in the sand
You really do conceal your head.
But even though that's wrong,
It seems without a lung for life
You could not live for long.
My wife and I delight to hear
Our wee girl's merry laugh,
As she's astride the elephant
Or feeding the giraffe.
But ostrich-regal, lung-gone, dead!.
When we are at the Zoo,
My wife's best hat will always serve
To turn my thoughts to you.

CARMENCITA.

(An Impression.)

"O EAST is east, and west is west

And never the twain shall meet."

And the dance of Spain is one of the twain To the English Man in the Street.

We love the trick of the lofty kick
And the muscular display

Of the nymph who has leapt at a muslin hoop
And stopp'd in her flight half-way.

A plain, blunt girl in the stormy swirl
Of accordion pleats and laces,

Tho' she cannot dance, if she spin and prance,
Is numbered among the Graces.

For heel and toe our hearts can glow
And the feats of the rhythmic clog,

And a poem of motion wells forth in the notion
Of a Serpentine Dancing Dog.

But the dancer's art, of her life a part,
A song of the wordless soul

With a tale to tell, like the music's swell,
Too large for the word's control,

That goes not down in London town
Where dogg'd conventions stick,

And dancers still must charm with frill,
Or "make shymnastic drick."

As the jungle king with his wrathful spring,
To the lamb that aptly bleats.
As the trumpet's blare to the palsied air
Of that which plays in pleats,

So is east to west, with its sun-born zest,
With fire at the quick heart's core,
And passions bold as the ardent gold
Of the sun on a southern shore.

T

REFLECTIONS OF A STATESMAN. •ts 7am Ist Saturday.-Things looking queer. Leamington in a ferment, Tories denouncing me. Like their impudence. Must order ARTHUR BALFOUR to stop this nonsense, and bring rebels to reason. I shall want Hythe thrown into the bargain. BALFOUR must write more letters. If our little lot are to get nothing out of all this, what's the use of having sacrificed principles and COURTNEY? Obviously none. JESSE COLLINGS quite agrees. Says the Tories will repent, when it is too late, of having refused to submit to the greatest, wisest, most generous and noblest statesman of this or any other age, past or future. Wonderful amount of sense in JESSE. Shall make him Governor-General of India, or First Lord of Admiralty.

Monday. Have seen BALFOUR. Says he can do nothing at Lea

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mington. Wanted me to withdraw Liberal Unionist candidate. ME! The mere notion ridiculous. Told him so. Also asked him how about Compact. He said Compact be " At this moment GOSCHEN came in, and interrupted. BALFOUR said missing word was "observed." GoSCHEN full of sympathy, but said he could do nothing. Shall not allow him to be Chancellor of Exchequer again. Shall be Chancellor of Exchequer myself. Letter in Times from GEOFFREY DRAGE, saying kind things about me. Rather patronising, but well meant. Shall make DRAGE Home Secretary.

Tuesday.-Letter in Times from Lord TEYNHAM attacking me on account of vote on Welsh Disestablishment. Even a fool of a lord might know a man can't wriggle out of everything, and can't please everybody. Have written to SALISBURY ordering him to throw TEYNHAM into the Tower as soon as Unionist Government in power. If he refuses, shall accept Premiership myself and execute TEYNHAM on Tower Hill. Leamington still raging. If this goes on shall march at head of Birmingham Fencibles and rase Leamington to the ground -all except three houses said to belong to Liberal Unionists. That'll teach them to oppose me.

Wednesday.-Letter in Times from BYRON REED. Says I'm not so bad as thev want to make me out. Nice sensible fellow BYRON. Shall make him Minister of Agriculture. Have sent ultimatums to SALISBURY, BALFOUR, AKERS-DOUGLAS, MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, and CHAPLIN, ordering them to retire from public life. Shall run the show on entirely different lines with AUSTEN and JESSE to help me. Have heard from editor of New Review, who refuses to disclose name of author, of an attack on me. Have sent HENRY JAMES to editor with new patent rack and thumbscrews. But there, my name's easy. Never could bear malice. Always forgive everybody. Notes from SALISBURY, BALFOUR & Co. They refuse to retire. HENRY JAMES returns. Editor broke rack and threw thumbscrews out of window. A very rude man, HENRY JAMES says. GULLY elected Speaker. I'm off to Birmingham.

...

Later.-Letter from HART DYKE in the Times. A good fellow. HART DYKE. But why, in the name of screw-nails, should they all presume to patronise me?

Letter in Standard from STANLEY BOULTER. Must stop that kind of nonsense. Leading article in Standard. Usual futilities: "We fully recognise loyal services, but on the present occasion," &c. Shall refuse peerage and retire to Central Australia with JESSE to found a Me-colony. Sick of the whole show.

Taboow it Tren't was a full QUEER QUERY.-ANY ADVANCE P-I see that at the Shop Assistants' Conference at Cardiff it was said that what shop-workers ought to go in for was a "Forward Policy." Surely this must be a mistake? If there is one thing that everybody objects to, it is forward young men and women behind the counter. One often hears the shop-walker say, "Will you come forward, Miss JONES, and serve this lady!" And perhaps that was what the Cardiff people were thinking of. Can this be the true explanation? I sincerely hope so; I don't want a forward 99 young person, a sort of "independent labour party," slamming down goods for me to inspect!-ALARMED.

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