* * * * *

[Illustration:  “EH, BUT I HAD A RARE TIME LAST YEAR-R.  A WAS AT MA COUSIN MACWHUSKIE’S A WHOLE FORTNIGHT, AN’ A DIDNA ONCE KEN A WAS THEER!”]

* * * * *

REVENGE.

(OR, A HINT TO A HOUSE-AGENT AFTER COMING AWAY FROM HIS OFFICE.)

  Your voice was pleasing and your face was fat;
    With soap ad libitum you sought to dabble us;
  But when I told you we must leave the flat
  Did I not notice; underneath the spat,
    The bifurcated boot that marks Diabolus?

  I know that in a brief while you’ll have found
    The house I wanted (sic), superbly roomy,
  With a fine view and every comfort crowned,
  A short three minutes from the Underground;
    Also I know that you are safe to “do” me.

  There will be something wrong; but you shall fill
    My ears with praises specious and irrelevant
  Of this and that; and you shall have your will,
  And heave a deep sigh when I’ve paid my bill,
    Having got off at last some rare white elephant.

  And when things happen to “The Yews” or “Planes”
    Left by the Joneses like a haunt of lazars;
  When the roof falls, or in the winter rains
  The dining-room breaks out in sudden blains,
    And every feast we have recalls BELSHAZZAR’s;

  You shall be smiling.  But you have not guessed
    One thing, for all your wisdom, child of Lucifer: 
  You did not know I was a bard, whose breast
  Could boil with bitter language when oppressed
    Like a bargee’s; if anything, abusiver.

  This is the high reward of sacred song;
    The minstrels’ voices are like falling honey
  When the gods please them, but when things go wrong
  They speak their mind out straight, and speak it strong,
    Especially on points concerned with money.

  So, if you “do me down,” I have my lyre,
    And I shall trumpet (at the normal Press wage)
  Such things about that house, and with such fire,
  That all men ever after shall conspire
    To shun the said demesne and curse that messuage.

  And spiders on the broken panes shall sit,
    And the grey rats shall scuttle in the basement,
  Until the Borough Council purchase it
  And cleanse and decorate, and lastly fit
    A fair blue plaque above the study casement,

  Saying, “Here lived a while and wove his spell,
    Eusebius Binks the bard, the unforgotten;
  The house is mentioned in his ‘Lines to Hell,’
  Also the agents, Messrs. Azazel,
    And the then drains which, so he sang, were rotten.”

  EVOE.

* * * * *

The Daily Telegraph says of the Portsmouth Corporation telephone system:—­

    “At present there are 1,899 subscribers and 2,528 distinct
    telephones.”