How insinuating he is about the food, “Some naice fishes?  Dey was laiving dis morning.”  And then, how accommodating!  I was once in the Grand Hotel during the usual “exceptional season,” when it rained unintermittently for a fortnight; the place was empty; “tristeful,” as ADOLF styled it.  The genius played billiards with me every day, and always won, though I rather fancy myself; and then how mindful he is of your individual bettings.  “I gif you dis place by de window—­to do you joy!” he ejaculates.  The simple creature, he is constantly trying to “make you please.”

I always present ADOLF with ten shillings—­five on arrival, and five on departure.  This procures me many harmless little privileges; and when old BROWN calls him an impertinent brute, I know that BROWN and ten shillings are difficult to part.

There is nothing ADOLF will not do for you for a sovereign—­but I cannot run to this; and yet this is the impression he has made.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  A LITTLE VAGUE!

Affable Landlady (to her new Artist Lodger), “AND I SUPPOSE, SIR, YOU COMES FROM ABROAD!”

Foreign Lodger.  “SO!  I GOME VROM AUSTRIA.”

A.L. “DO YOU HINDEED, SIR?  FROM HOSTRIA!  AH!  HOW THAT’S WHERE THE HOSTRICHES COMES FROM, I SUPPOSE?!!”]

* * * * *

AN OLD AND NEW PEER.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,—­Look here!  I’ve done good service in my time, and no one likes to see himself deprived of an honoured title, or forced to take a back seat.  I’ve been trodden under-foot over and over again—­but I’ve borne it with fortitude, and never, never given way.  Now, what do I hear?  That a Gentleman, a Government Whip, for whom I have the highest esteem and respect, is now to assume the title which, by right of position, place, time, and prescription, belongs to me, and to me only, I can bear much, but, after so many years of devoted service, during which, with all my opportunities, I have never once made any attempt to leave my place to go higher up, or to go lower down, or, in either case, to go with the tide, I cannot, and, indeed, will not, yield my title to anyone, however good and useful to his Party he may have been, but proudly declaring myself as good as any “Sprig of Nobility,” even as this one who cometh up as a Flower, I beg, protestingly, to remind the world at large that I am “Nulli Secundus,” and de facto et dejure,

THE ONLY BATTERSEA PEER.

P.S.—­Spell it with an “i” or “e,” it’s all one.  If my “i” is put out, and “he” has got in instead, that’s a mere quibble or quebble.

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[Illustration:  Cowley Lambert.]

[Illustration:  H. Campbell.]

MEMBERS WE SHALL MISS.