["No game was ever yet invented which held the female mind in thrall save by indirect means.  Where would croquet have been, so far as the Ladies were concerned, without its Curates, or lawn-tennis without its ‘Greek gods’ ...  If men played for nothing, they would find it dull enough.”—­JAMES PAYN]

  ’Tis mighty well for Menfolk at Womankind to gibe,
  And swear they do not care for games without some lure or bribe,
  But e’en in JAMES PAYN’s armour there seems some weakish joints;
  He does not care for “glorious Whist” unless for “sixpenny points!”
      Whist!  Whist!  Whist!  It charms the Bogey, Man: 
      Whist!  Whist!  Whist!  He’ll play it when he can. 
      But “pointless Whist,” as PAYN admits, is not at all his plan;
      You must have “money on” to please the Bogey, Man!

  Now, Ladies like to play “for love,” a fault male hucksters blame,
  But only sordid souls deny that is the true “grand game.” 
  Man’s vulgarer ambition’s not just to play well and win;
  His eye is ever on the stakes, his interest on the “tin.” 
      Whist!  Whist!  Whist!  That blatant Bogey, Man! 
      Whist!  Whist!  Whist!  He’ll flout us when he can. 
      “Indirect means” though, after all, are portions of his plan;
      For all his brag he loves the “swag,” the Bogey, Man!

* * * * *

MUM’S THE WORD!

[Mr. CHAMBERLAIN presided lately at a Deaf-and-Dumb Meeting.]

            JOSEPH reflecteth:—­
  Deaf-mutes make the best audience, I see;
    They gave me no rude flood of gibes to stem. 
  True, they were deaf, and so could not hear me,
    But they were dumb, so I could not hear them!

* * * * *

MADAME ROLAND RE-EDITED (from a sham-Japanese point of view).—­O LIBERTY! what strange (decorative) things are done in thy name!

* * * * *

JACK’S APPEAL.

["It is impossible for warrant-officers in the Navy not to see that they are placed at a disadvantage as compared with non-commissioned officers in the Army, and it must be very difficult to persuade them that the two cases are so essentially different as to afford no real ground for grievance.”—­The “Times,” on “An Earnest Appeal on Behalf of the Rank and File of the Navy.”]

Jack Tar to Tommy Atkins, loquitur:—­

  TOMMY ATKINS, TOMMY ATKINS, penmen write pertikler fine
  Of the Wooden Walls of England, and likeways the Thin Red Line;
  But for those as form that Line, mate, or for those as man them Walls,
  Scribes don’t seem so precious anxious to kick up their lyric squalls. 
  Not a bit of it, my hearty; for one reason—­it don’t pay;
  There is small demand, my TOMMY, for a DIBDIN in our day. 
  Oh, I know that arter dinner your M.P.’s can up and quote
  Tasty tit-bits from old CHARLEY, which they all reel off by rote;
  But if there is a cherub up aloft to watch poor JACK,
  That there cherub ain’t a poet,—­bards are on another tack.