ONE WHO RESPECTS THE PAST.

Tumbledowns, West Kensington (late Reading).

* * * * *

[Illustration:  OVERHEARD IN THE HIGHLANDS.

First Chieftain.  “I SAY, OLD CHAP, WHAT A DOOSE OF A BORE THESE GAMES ARE!”

Second Chieftain.  “AH, BUT, MY DEAR BOY, IT IS THIS SORT OF THING THAT HAS MADE US SCOTCHMEN WHAT WE ARE!!”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  A NUISANCE.

Miss Priscilla.  “YES; IT’S A BEAUTIFUL VIEW.  BUT TOURISTS ARE IN THE HABIT OF BATHING ON THE OPPOSITE SHORE, AND THAT’S RATHER A DRAWBACK.”

Fair Visitor.  “DEAR ME!  BUT AT SUCH A DISTANCE AS THAT—­SURELY—­”

Miss Priscilla.  “AH, BUT WITH A TELESCOPE, YOU KNOW!”]

* * * * *

AT LAST!

(JEREMIAD BY A MIDDLE-AGED MARTYR TO THE GREAT SEASIDE SUPERSTITION.)

["To middle-aged people, at all events, nothing can be more
trying and deleterious than holidays.”—­Daily News.]

Oh, thanks to thee, thanks to thee, sage unconventional! 
Heaven be blest, the truth’s out, then, at last! 
Holiday woes—­’twould take volumes to mention all!—­
Now, in the lump, meet a shrewd counterblast.
Trying? Of course they are! Most deleterious?
Scribe, let me clasp thee, in thought, to this breast! 
Holiday-hunting is Man’s most mysterious,
Maddening guest!

Quixote, I swear, was a model of sanity,
When with the Holiday-seeker compared. 
Fidgety folly, and fussy inanity. 
These be the figments by which we are snared. 
Soon as you’re drawn from your own cosy drawing-room,
Far over flood, field, or foam—­for your sins—­
Then, when your breast makes for vulturine gnawing room,
Bother begins!

Bother, that bugbear of bufferish Middle-Age! 
Swift “scurry-funging” may do for the young,
The “hey-diddle-diddle, the Cat-and-the-fiddle” age. 
“Over the moon” I myself once had sprung,
Thirty years syne, in sheer fervour athletical—­
Now, like the dog, I would laugh, and look on. 
Once, with sheer “drive,” I’d a sense sympathetical—­
Now I have none!

Holiday?  Term, Sir, is simply a synonym
For—­waste of tissue!  What doctor will dare
Tell his poor patients so? I’ll put my tin on him! 
Rest?  Recreation?  Pick-up?  Change of air? 
All question-begging fudge-phrases of sophistry! 
Let city-toilers who’re fagged or “run down,”
Autumnal quiet (in home or in office), try;
Not “out of town.”

Out of town?  Where is the term that’s claptrappier?
Means out of temper, or out of your mind. 
Boot-black or old crossing-sweeper’s far happier,
Tied to his task in the town—­as you’ll find. 
Picking up coppers far better than picking up
Shells by the sea, or sham friends on the snore. 
Bah!  What have buffers to do with such kicking-up
Heels?  It’s a bore!