THE VEGES ON STRIKE.
(A Dream.)
A noise arose of earnest men
Refusing imitation duck;
It was a dreadful moment when
The Beetroot-eaters struck,
And all around untasted stood
Rations of Mr. Kilo's favourite food.
For some forsook the sacred rules
And pulled, despite their master's word,
Ham sandwiches from reticules;
On every side one heard
The sharp staccato lettuce-crunch
Merged in the howls of carnivores at lunch.
And one conspirator leaped up
Amid the clash of tinkling spoons
And poured into a protose cup
His helping of stewed prunes;
And, blood-red presager of doom,
Half a tomato hissed across the room.
And angry "Pshaws" and long "Tut-tuts"
Proceeded from that concourse dense,
And "Nuts," they wailed, "we want more nuts—
More nuts at less expense!"
Till Mr. Ambrose Kilo came
And hushed the berserk banqueters to shame.
"Heroes," he cried, with lifted hand,
"And comrades of the meatless life,
Shall the great cause for which we stand"
(Here someone dropped a knife)
"Fall into disrepute?" (Loud roars
Of "No, not it," from contrite nucivores).
"Bearing aloft a stainless shield
That none may smirch without remorse,
This management declines to yield
To crude displays of force;
Yet, since it seems the general wish,
Mock-cutlets will be five-pence less per dish."
He ceased, and trembling fingers cleared
All vestiges of meat away;
The smiling handmaids reappeared
With mounds of buttered hay;
Silence replaced the storm-tossed scenes;
There was no sound save masticated beans.
EVOE.
From "Answers to Correspondents":
"A bellion, according to the French and American method of numeration, is a thousand millions, or 1,000,000,000. According to the English method, it is a million millions, or 1,000,000,000."—Irish Paper.
We should have liked to know the estimated value of a re-bellion, according to the Irish method, but we understand that there is no accounting for that.
