Who’ll start a League to be called Anti-Holiday? 
Bet half the middle-aged men-folk will join! 
Then we might get an occasional jolly day,
Free from the pests who perplex and purloin. 
“Health-Resort” quackery, portmanteau-packery,
Cheat-brigade charges and chills I might miss. 
Dear-bought jimcrackery, female knicknackery!—­
Oh! ’twere pure bliss!

* * * * *

BRAVO, BOBBY!

["The Brighton Police have received orders to move on all
organ-grinders.”]

Bless you, Brighton Bobby, bless you,
Boldly bringing balmy bliss! 
Barrel—­organ barred—­I guess you
Banish blatant bands with this.

  Brazen blasts, by boobies blowing,
    Bad as barrel’s buzz can be. 
  Bid them budge!  I’d vote for throwing
    Beggars like these in the sea.

  Battered bands from Bremen, Berlin;
    Bearded bandits, born between
  Bari and Bergamo, hurl in! 
    Bathed—­that’s what they’ve never been!

  Britons all, oh, be not laggards,
    But, like Brighton, move them on! 
  Bad, bacteria-hearing black-guards,
    Beastly, blatant brutes, begone!

* * * * *

ANOTHER ABOUT THE NEW LORD MAYOR ELECT.—­“It’s a Knill wind that blows nobody any good.” Signed, BOGIE MOORE.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE OLD SPIRIT.

["Gentlemen of the Life Guards,—­Forward—­March!”—­Sir WALTER SCOTT. “Old Mortality.”]

L’ESPRIT DE CORPS (loq.).  “SHAME!  SHAME!—­IS IT THUS YOU USE YOUR SWORDS?  WHATEVER MAY HAVE HAPPENED, ARE WE NOT STILL ’GENTLEMEN OF THE LIFE GUARDS’?”

“It is stated that Lord METHUEN, after censuring the conduct of the regiment, requested the men who had cut the saddle-panels to step forward and own the act, which would in that case be dealt with simply as a case of insubordination.  He gave them a few minutes to consider, but as none of them made any admission, he intimated that he should have to report the matter to the Commander-in-Chief as a mutiny.”—­Daily Paper, 30th Sept., 1892.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  AN ABSENT AUDIENCE.

Socialist.  “Ah!—­it’s all very well yer looking at Me, with yer Smiles AND yer Jeers....”]

* * * * *

DE CORONA.

["The shape of the hat is another token in which individuality asserts itself, and the angle at which it is worn.  There are men who vary this angle with their different moods.”—­Article on “Men’s Dress,” Daily News, Sept. 10.]

  You ask why I gaze with devotion
    At ALGERNON’s features, my love? 
  Nay, you are astray in your notion,
    My glance is directed above;
  His hair may be yellow or ruddy,
    No longer I’m anxious for that,
  But now I incessantly study
          The tilt of his hat.