Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/561
go on cleaning my rifle. And even if, having done justice to their sentiments, they next rose on their firing platform and put three rounds into me—well, I might certainly reply in kind, but I shouldn't be spiteful about it.
Let us turn from the contemplation of such dull and sordid humanity to the refreshing picture of the honest worth, if unsoldierly deportment, of my stable-boy turned sentry. Time and again I have ordered and besought him to say "Halt! Who goes there?—Advance one and be identified.—Pass, friend, all's well!" but always in vain. When the emergency arises he confines himself to what no doubt he regards as the point, and calls out shortly, "Who bist?" Only when I myself approach does he elaborate his challenge. "Who bist, Sir?" says he.
Yours ever, Henry.
Why not train our mascots to be useful as well as ornamental?
HIS ONE GRIEF.
Of Pella's wondrous youth;
My methods are as gory
And more devoid of ruth;
Still, later generations
Applaud his imitations
Of German close formations,
Though cumbrous and uncouth.
I envy not the Hun,
Old Attila, for clearly
His exploits I've outdone;
For though I am his debtor
In spirit and in letter,
I've never failed to better
The triumphs which he won.
Of Cheops and his line,
Whose temples seek to tell us
That builders are divine;
A heresy demoded,
By common sense corroded,
And utterly exploded
By Krupp and Me and mine.
Had grandeur in his aim,
But I should be a traitor
To advertise his name;
For he was only smitten
Because we aided Britain—
The blackest entry written
In Prussia's book of fame.
Humbles my lofty pride—
Herod the grim and lonely,
The great infanticide,
Who, zealously fulfilling
The function of child-killing,
In this kind of blood-spilling
All rivals hath defied.
For K. of K.
Some slight protection against hitting below the belt—the Garter.
"Sentence of three months' hard labour was passed yesterday at Bow-street on Ernest Taylor, clerk, no fixed abode, for obtaining money by fraud from Metropolitan policemen. He was arrested in the Strand by a Scottish policeman who had lent him sixpence. A detective said he was believed to have victimised 40 constables."—Daily Chronicle.
Constable (thoughtfully): "Bang went saxpence, but (with an effort) I'll no be sayin' it wasna worth it."