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[Illustration:  INFELICITOUS QUOTATIONS.

Hostess.  “WON’T YOU TRY SOME OF THAT JELLY, HERR SILBERMUND?”

Herr Silbermund (who has just been helped to Pudding).  “ACH, ZANK YOU, NO.  I VOOT ’RAHZER PEAR VIZ ZE ILLS VE HAF, ZAN VLY TO OZZERS ZAT VE KNOW NOT OF.’” [Herr S. is particularly proud of his knowledge of Shakspeare.]]

* * * * *

“WORSE THAN EVER!”

FARMER SMITH LOQUITUR:—­

  “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig!”
    Yes, so runs the old-fashioned nursery rhyme,
  And a porker that’s plump, and round-barrel’d and big,
    Is good business,—­or used to be once on a time. 
  But now, they’re the horriblest nuisance on earth
  Are Pigs, and a great deal more plague than they’re worth.

  I begin to believe ’twould be better by far
    If Pigs, like the Dodo, extinct could become. 
  They involve one in nothing but jangle and jar,
    And as to large profits, why that’s all a hum. 
  “Please the Pigs?” That’s absurd, a mere obsolete wheeze,
  For Pigs are precisely the beasts you can’t please!

  Gee up, Dobbin, old lad!  Home’s in sight; you have borne
    My burden, and that of my basket, right well,
  Your carrying power some neighbours would scorn,
    But you’re sound and good grit, though you mayn’t look a swell. 
  We’re starting, lad, after our short half-way halt,
  If we don’t make good time it will not be our fault.

  We did the first stretch unexpectedly slick,
    My basket well loaded a feather-weight seemed,
  The road was so smooth, and your canter so quick,
    ’Twas better, old lad, than we either had dreamed. 
  A great disappointment to some folk, I think. 
  Then we halted half-way for a rest and a drink.

  That big Irish Pig, which had plagued us so oft. 
    Was away,—­running after its head or its tail! 
  Oh joy, Dobbin, dear, to jog on, and go soft,
    No row, no obstruction by hedge-gap or rail. 
  Ah, then they discovered the pace and the pith
  Of Dobbin the dull, and his mount, Farmer SMITH.

  Now all seems smooth sailing!  Hillo!  What was that? 
    A squeak?  Nay, it sounds like a chorus of squeaks! 
  Don’t shy, my dear Dobbin—­you’ll shake off my hat. 
    The lane here grows narrow.  Who’s there?  No one speaks. 
  But that raucous “hrumph! hrumph!” that cacophonous yell! 
  ’Tis Pig-noise, and Irish—­I know it so well.

  It is right in the road, it is plump in the gap. 
    Steady, Dobbin!  Don’t halt for this hullaballoo—­
  Gee up! and go steady, now there’s a good chap. 
    What, the same plaguy Pig!  Nay, by Jove, there are two!
  And they’re fighting each other, these porkers perverse,
  In the gap we must pass!  Oh! this grows worse and worse!