LONDON AS USUAL.
("Kelly's London Directory" for 1916, a contemporary remarks, is very much the same as the volume for 1915.)
Where, where are the signs of the raider
Who swam to our ken like a kite,
Who swore he had played the invader
And knocked us to bits in the night;
Who pounded these parts into jelly
From Mile End, he said, to the Mall?
For the man who should know (J. J. Kelly)
Can't spot 'em at all.
You may turn up the street that is Vigo
Or alight on the Lane that is Mark;
You may let your incredulous eye go
O'er each Crescent and Corner and Park;
You may hunt through the humblest of alleys
Or the giddiest haunts of the town,
And Kelly's, who're "safe" as the Palace,
Have got 'em all down.
So I sing to those equals in wonder,
Of Bradshaw (the expert on trains),
Who have torn the Hun's fiction asunder—
That our City's a mass of remains;
Here's our proof that we're plainly not undone,
That, although every night she lies hid,
Our stolid undaunted old London
Still stands where she did.
Porter (dug-out). "Shall I put yer 'ockey-knockers in the van, Sir?"