The Off-Portsmouth Phrase-Book.
Have you caught a fish?
No, but I have bagged a cannon-ball.
Is the sea too rough for your boat?
No, the sea is not too rough, but the Torpedoes are decidedly embarrassing.
Is that a pretty shell that you are going to carry home to your children?
No, it is a live one, that, if it bursts a yard nearer, will blow us into smithereens.
Do you propose returning to your lodging to-night?
That is a matter that will be decided by the Commander of the nearest practising gun-boat.
First Classic. "BY THE WAY, HADN'T DANTE GOT ANOTHER NAME?"
Second Classic. "YES; ALFIERI, I THINK—OR ELSE ALIGHIERI."
First Classic. "AH, PERHAPS YOU'RE RIGHT. I HAD A NOTION IT WAS GABRIEL ROSSETTI, OR SOMETHING!"
CUTTING REMARKS.
Mr. HENRY AUTHOR JONES has taken a theatre wherein to play his own plays to his own taste. On the first night of The Crusaders this taste was not exactly the taste of the audience. Mr. HENRY AUTHOR JONES seemed to object to be tied to time, and the result was the prompt appearance of that terrible conqueror of things terrestrial, General Boredom. Since the initial performance, it is reported that matters have gone on more smoothly. According to the "usual sources of information" the dramatist has been cheered on leaving his theatre, and heartily congratulated. On one occasion he actually supplemented his piece with a speech! Apparently he was under the impression that there could not be too much of a good thing—JONES for choice! It may be that since the first performance, there has been some curtailment made in the play. To judge from appearances it was a question of cutting—either the author the play, or the public the theatre!
QUITE A NEW SPEC.—We have just received a prospectus of a Company entitled "The Monarch Insurance Society." Of course, all the Crowned Heads of Europe will be in it. We haven't yet read it, the title being sufficient for the present. Ça donne à penser. Will it provide New Monarchs for old ones? Will it give good sovereigns in exchange for bad ones? If so—where will the profit come in?
FRENCH AS SHE IS "WRIT."
The Standard's own Vienna Correspondent, when reporting the unpleasant incident in the life of the Duc d'ORLÉANS, told us how the Prince, on unwittingly "accepting service," said to the astute lawyer's clerk, "Mais, Monsieur, ce n'est pas le moment." To which the clerk replied, "also in French," says the Standard, "One time is as good as another." But why was not the lawyer's clerk's French as she is spoke given as well as that of M. le Duc? And how much more telling it would have been had M. le Duc been served well and faithfully by a clerk like Perker's Mr. Lowten, fresh, very fresh, from a carouse at the "Magpie and Stump," or even by one of Messrs. Dodson and Fog's young men who enjoyed themselves so much when "a twigging" of the virtuous Mr. Pickwick.
"Mais, Monsieur, ce n'est pas le moment," says the Duke, to which our Mr. Lowten would have replied in Magpie-and-Stumping French, "Eggskewsy moy, Mossoo, le Dook, ung Tom is aussy bong qu'ung autre. Mossoo ler Dook ar maintenong pérusé ler documong; voici le copy et voilà two. Bonsoir, il faut que je l'accroche."
Whereupon he would have "hooked it," as it appears this particular lawyer's clerk did, and was not seen again. No doubt he joined a circle of admiring friends in the legal neighbourhood (some Magpies-and-Stumps still exist), where, over a glass and a cigar, he recounted the merry tale of how he had served a Duke.
The relation of Hypnotiser to the Hypnotised at the Aquarium may be simply described as "GERMANE to the subject.'
SONG AND CHORUS FOR THE COUNTY COUNCIL ON NEXT DEBATE ON THE WATER SUPPLY—"Young BENN he was a nice young man."