She did Rome in a swift two days, gave half the time to Venice,
    But vows that she saw everything, although in awful haste;
  She’s fond of dancing, but she seems to fight shy of lawn-tennis,
    Because it might endanger the proportions of her waist.

  Her manner might be well defined as elegantly skittish;
    She loves a Lord as only a Republican can do;
  And quite the best of titles she’s persuaded are the British,
    And well she knows the Peerage, for she reads it through and through.

  She’s bediamonded superbly, and shines like a constellation,
    You scarce can see her fingers for the multitude of rings;
  She’s just a shade too conscious, so it seems, of admiration,
    With irritating tendencies to wriggle when she sings.

  She owns she is “Amur’can,” and her accent is alarming;
    Her birthplace has an awful name you pray you may forget;
  Yet, after all, we own “La Belle Americaine” is charming,
    So let us hope she’ll win at last her long-sought coronet.

* * * * *

TIPS FROM THE TAPE.

(PICKED UP IN MR. PUNCH’S OWN SPECIAL CITY CORNER.)

In my last I announced that I was busily giving my mind to the launching of a new “Combination Pool” over the satisfactory results of which to all concerned in it, under certain contingencies, I had no shadow of a doubt.  This I have since managed to float on the market, and, though I worked it on a principle of my own, which, for want of a better description, I have styled amalgamated “Profit and Loss,” I regret to have to inform those clients who have entrusted me with their cheques in the hopes of getting, as I really fully believed they would, 700 per cent. for their money in three days, that I have had to close the speculation rather suddenly, and I fear, as the following illustrative figures will show in a fashion that not only deprives me of the pleasure of enclosing them a cheque for Profits, but obliges me to announce to them that their cover has disappeared.  The Stocks with which I operated were “Drachenfonteim Catapults,” “Catawanga Thirty-fives,” and “Blinker’s Submarine Explosives.”  The ILLUSTRATION, I hoped, would have stood as follows:—­

  L100 invested in Drachenfonteim Catatpults,
    showing profit of 1 per cent....L100

  L100 invested in Catawanga Thirty-fives,
    showing profit of 21/2 per cent....L250

  L300 invested in Blinker’s Submarine Explosives,
    showing profit of 3 per cent....L900

        Gross Profits....L1250

Unfortunately, however, the real figures came out rather differently, for they stood, I regret to say, as under:—­

  L100 invested in Drachenfonteim Catapults,
    at a loss of 5 per cent....L500

  L100 invested in Catawanga Thirty-fives,
    at a loss of 7 per cent....L700