Ah!  Labour may well look a little surprised. 
  “Fit us all to that cramped prison-pallet!  Oh lor! 
  It may suit a few stumpies, but England holds more. 
  Might as well fit us out with fixed ‘duds’ from our birth. 
  Regardless of difference in growth, or in girth. 
  No!  Snap-votes may be caught ’midst a Congress’s roar,
  But tool us all down to one gauge, mate?  Oh lor!!!”

  New Unionist Titan and Stentor in one,
  To pose as PROCRUSTES may seem rather fun;
  When it comes to the pinch of experiment, then
  You may find that some millions of labouring men
  Of all sorts and sizes, all callings and crafts,
  The toilers by furnaces, factories, shafts,
  The thrall of the mine, and the swart stithy slave,
  The boys of the bench, and the sons of the wave,
  Are not quite so easy to “size up” all round
  To that comfortless bed where you’d have them all bound,
  As the travellers luckless who fell in the way
  Of the old Attic highwayman THESEUS did slay. 
  Though your voice may sound loud and your thews look immense,
  You may fall to the THESEUS—­of Free Common Sense! 
  As BURT says—­and his eloquence moves but beguiles not—­
  On short cuts to Millennium Providence smiles not!

[Footnote 1:  LUCIAN’s Dialogues of the Dead.]

* * * * *

APPROPRIATE LOCATION.—­“Yes,” said a friend of the person they were discussing, “he is a great traveller, and tells you some of the most marvellous stories.”  “Where does he live?” was the question.  And the very natural answer was, “Oh, in some out-and-out-lying district.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE MODERN “BED OF PROCRUSTES.”

PROCRUSTES.  “NOW THEN, YOU FELLOWS; I MEAN TO FIT YOU ALL TO MY LITTLE
BED!”

CHORUS.  “OH LOR-R!!”

["It is impossible to establish universal uniformity of hours without inflicting very serious injury to workers.”—­Motion at the recent Trades’ Congress.]]

* * * * *

THE BITTER CRY OF THE OUTCAST CHOIR-BOY.

[Illustration]

  Break, break, break,
    O voice, on my old top C! 
  And I would that my tongue could utter
    The thoughts that arise in me!

  O, well for the fishmonger’s boy
    That he shrieks his two notes above A.! 
  O, well for the tailor’s son
    That he soars in the old, old way!

  And the twelve-year chaps go on
    Up the gamut steady and shrill;
  But, O, for the creak of a larynx cracked,
    And a glottis that won’t keep still!

  Break, break, break,
    O voice, on my dear top C.
  But the swell solo parts of a boyhood fled
    They’ll never give more to me!

* * * * *

ANNALS OF A QUIET WATERING-PLACE