OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
In The Splendid Spur, "Q." has given his Pegasus his head—(Queer appearance this Pegasus with Q.'s head; but, as that's not my meaning, I must mind my P's and Q's)—and has spared neither whip nor splendid spur in his wild ride. Up behind, and clinging to "Q.," we are carried onward, amid clashing of arms, booming of cannon, pealing of bells, flashing of steel; anon we stumble over rocks, tumble over cliffs, hide in secret caves, secrete ourselves, like mad Lord High Chancellors, among Woolsacks; then after fainting, stabbing, dying, crying, sighing, "Jack's all alive again," and away we gallop, like Dick Turpin on Black Bess, and we leave girls dressed as boys behind us, and provincial Joans of Arc going out fighting for Church and King; and then, just as we are hanging suspended in mid-air over an awful precipice, there is a last gallant effort, and we awake to find ourselves gasping for breath, and awake to the fact that "Q.'s Pegasus" is a nightmare. It recalls memories of Louis Stevenson's Black Arrow, but distances it by miles, while here and there its vivid descriptions are equal to some of the glowing pictures in Shorthouse's John Inglesant. The Baron hereby recommends it as a stirring work for the novel-skipper in an idle hour.
By the way, it would be difficult, to say the least of it, to prove that the slang phrase "shut up" and the Americanism "say" were never used in A.D. 1642, in the sense in which they are used in 1890, but they are scarcely characteristic of the modes of expression at that particular period.
Baron De Book-Worms.
A SONG WITH WORDS.
(Suggestively dedicated to Lord Bury.)
Oh! tell me not that you will "clic"
When I can but "electricate,"
Or, "propelected," merely "tric"
A distance I might well "volate."
For if to "Faradate" or "Volt"
In "motored" motion I may "glide,"
I wonder why I may not "bolt,"
When called on to "electricide."
Yet as each word I clip and splice,
I'm more than half inclined to "trice."
Let others "elk" until they're wild,
I will not "lectroceed" or "glint,"
And though their trip be "poled" or "piled"
I need not "coil," or "spark," or "scint."
No, if "electroflected" force
They use to "clash" along their way,
I p'raps might "ohm" upon my course
Or even "squirm," if "clicked" to-day.
"But no! the Times gives sound advice,
As matters stand, I think I'll "trice"!