“Blow to the coalition.”—­"Times’” Headline on Mr. BARNES’S resignation.]

  Have you heard of the coming of Nemesis,
    How she glides through the ambient gloom
  That envelops the Downing-Street premises
    Where George is awaiting his doom? 
  For the hour of his utter discredit
    Has struck and the blighter must go
  If the Carmelite organs have said it
          It’s bound to be so.

  The Cabinet’s daily imbroglio
    Amounts to a permanent brawl;
  Mr. Barnes has resigned a portfolio
    Which never existed at all;
  It is true he was, anyhow, going,
    Yet it serves (in The Times) for a sign
  Of the symptoms, perceptibly growing,
          Of GEORGE’S decline.

Mr. ASQUITH (of Paisley) endorses
The sentence of violent death,
Though he leaves him alternative courses
For yielding his ultimate breath;
He allows him an optional charter—­
To swing by his neck from a tree,
Or to perish a piteous martyr
To felo-de-se.

And what of poor Damocles under
This horror that hangs by a thread? 
Does he wilt in a palsy and wonder
How soon it will sever his head? 
Are his lips and his cheeks of a blank hue? 
Does he toy with his victuals and drink? 
Not at all; on the contrary, thankyou,
His health’s in the pink.

  He’ll be bashed to the semblance of suet,
    So say the familiars of Fate;
  But they don’t tell us who is to do it
    Or mention the actual date;
  Though the lords of the Circus assure us
    His voice will be presently mute,
  Yet the victim, pronounced moriturus,
          Declines to salute.

  All colours, from purple to yellow,
    The oracles kill him in print,
  But he turns not a hair, for the fellow
    Is hopeless at taking a hint;
  Apparently free from suspicion
    And mindless of what it all means,
  He careers on the road to perdition,
          Ebullient with beans.

  O.S.

* * * * *

“OUR INVINCIBLE NAVY.”

In the article which appeared under the above title in the issue of Punch for January 14th, the setting of the nautical episode, in which the subject of the story conducted himself with so much aplomb and resourcefulness, was derived from a personal experience related to the author; but Mr. Punch has his assurance that Reginald McTaggart was not intended even remotely to represent any actual individual.

* * * * *

HIS FUTURE.

PART I.—­THE PROPOSAL, 1920.

“About this boy of ours, my dear,” said Gerald.

“Well, what about it?” said Margaret.  “He weighed fourteen pounds and an eighth this morning, and he’s only four months and ten days old, you know.”