I can always tell a hari from a kari
    ("Harakiri” is a silly pedant’s freak);
  I can tell the style of CAINE from that of MARIE;
    But I cannot tell a bubble from a squeak.

  I never take a DEELEY for a DOOLEY;
    I never take a putter for a cleek;
  I never talk of HEALY, meaning HOOLEY;
    But I cannot tell a bubble from a squeak.

  I understand the sense of “oils are spotty”;
    I know the height of Siniolchum’s peak;
  I know that some may think my ditty dotty;
    But I cannot tell a bubble from a squeak.

  P.S.

  I know the market price of eggs in Surrey,
    The acreage of maize in Mozambique—­
  And now at last, thanks to immortal “MURRAY,”
    I’ve learned to tell a bubble from a squeak.

[Illustration:  “OH, GEORGE WE MUST HAVE STEPPED OFF WITH THE WRONG FOOT!”]

* * * * *

THE CONSERVATISM OF THE LIBERAL PARTY.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,—­I know you take no sides in party politics, but I still think you would like to hear why it is that I have gone over to the Independent Liberals.  No, it has nothing to do with Mr. ASQUITH’S triumphal procession and still less with the NORTHCLIFFE Press.  The fact is that till quite recently I belonged to the true blue Tory school—­was indeed probably the last survivor of the Old Guard—­and I found myself out of touch with the progressive tendencies of modern Toryism, its deplorable way of moving with the times, its hopeless habit of discarding what it would call the old shibboleths when it wrongly imagined them to be outworn.  My decision to leave a party that has long ceased to deserve its honoured name was immediately due to a Liberal Paper which editorially ridiculed the Liberty League, formed for the defeat of Bolshevist propaganda, and pooh-poohed the idea of the existence of dangerous Bolshevist elements in the country.  This attitude attracted me enormously; for I recalled the standpoint of the same paper in the days before the War—­how it ridiculed the alleged German menace and pooh-poohed the idea of the existence of hostile German elements in our midst.  Here, I said, is the party for me; here is your authentic Bourbon spirit—­the type that learns nothing and forgets nothing; that in the midst of a changing world remains immovable as a rock.  Yes, Sir, for a Tory of the old school there is no place to-day except in the ranks of Liberalism.

  Yours faithfully,
  SEMPER EADEM.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  MODERN DRAMA BELOW STAIRS.

THE “MAID’S” HOSPITALITY TO “ROBERT.”]

* * * * *

RATES OF EXCHANGE.

Jones was reading his morning paper in the opposite corner seat with unusual attention, and he disregarded my greeting.

“Why this absorption?” I inquired.  “Usually you come to the station with a piece of toast behind one ear, fastening your boots as you run, and wake us all up with your first fine morning rapture.”