Like their dwellings the rabbits
    Deep in darkling retreats,
  This weird widow inhabits
    Subterranean seats.

  What with humour “contrary,”
    Or ironic despair,
  She denominates “airey”—­
    From its absence of air!

  It would give me the blues
    Household gods to uphold
  With a Lloyd’s Weekly News
    Of some fifty days old.

  In a Stygian gloom,
    Far from sun and ozone,
  She sits locked in her room,
    Uncompanioned, alone.

  At a knock, at a call
    How she shivers and starts! 
  She’s “that nervous”—­and “Hall
    Of ’er fambly ’as ’earts.”

  Not till gloaming obscure
    Cools hot London at last,
  Hies she forth to procure
    Her ideal repast.

  “A red ’erring, an inion,
    Just of dripping a bite”
  —­This is not my opinion,
    Hers verbatim I cite.

  But I fancy, though loth to
    Thus detract from her merits,
  (And I’ve her solemn oath too!)
    That she’s “partial to sperrits.”

  For once suddenly coming
    (She supposed me away)
  I was struck by her humming
    “Ta-ra-ra Boom de Ay!”

  And not humming it only;
    Also dancing the same,—­
  This bereaved, honest, lonely
    Deferential dame!

  “Ta-ra-ra Boom de Ay!”
    In my desolate hall;
  I, though prone to be gay,
    Didn’t like it at all.

  “Which,” she said, “it was Fits—­
    The Sint Biteus”—­her fling!—­
  Yes!  The Caretaker, it’s
    A mysterious thing.

* * * * *

CONVERSATIONAL HINTS FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS.

(BY MR. PUNCH’S OWN GROUSE IN THE GUN-ROOM.)

LUNCH (CONTINUED).

How well I remember a certain day in the by-gone years, when for the first time a great truth suddenly burst upon me in all its glory.  The morning’s sport had been unsuccessful.  We were all fairly tired, and some of us, in spite of the moderate temperature, were perspiring freely.  For we had been walking up late partridges most of the morning, with just an occasional shot here and there at pheasants in covert.  Now, late partridges are perhaps the least amenable of created things.  They cherish a perfectly ridiculous conviction that nature, in endowing them with life, intended that they should preserve it, and consequently they hold it to be their one aim and object to fly, whirring and cheeping, out of sight, long before even an enthusiastic shot could have a chance of proving to them how beautifully a bird can be missed.  For some reason or other, our host had refused or had been unable to drive the birds.  One result was that we had tramped and tramped and tramped, getting only rare shots, and doing but little execution.  Another result was, that the place was simply littered with lost tempers, and we sat