MARTIAL IN LONDON
EXQUISITE wines and comestibles,
From Slater, and Fortnum and Mason;
Billiard, écarté, and chess tables;
Water in vast marble basin;
Luminous books (not voluminous)
To read under beech-trees cacuminous;
One friend, who is fond of a distich,
And doesn’t get too syllogistic;
A valet, who knows the complete art
Of service—a maiden, his sweetheart:
Give me these, in some rural pavilion,
And I’ll envy no Rothschild his million.
Mortimer Collins.