Here in the stalls we are stiff as if starch, meant
Only for shirt-fronts, to faces had mounted up;
Dowagers' wills may be read on their parchment,
Beautiful busts on your thumbs may be counted up.
Girls in the pit are remarkably rosy,
Each claspt by lover who passes the paper-bag;
Here I can't even, the girls are so prosy,
One digit taper bag.
Yet could I sit in the pit of the Surrey,
Munching an orange or spooning with 'Arriet;
Sadly I fear I should be in no hurry
Backward to drive my existence's chariot.
"Squeezes" are ill compensated by crushes—
Stalls may be dull, but they're jolly luxurious;
Really the way o'er past joys we can gush is
Awfully curious!
Life is a chaos of comic confusion,
Past things alone take a halo harmonious;
So from illusion we wake to illusion,
Each as the rest just as true and erroneous.
Fin de siècle I am, and so be it!
Here's to the problems of sad sociology!
This is my weird,—like a man I must dree it,
Great is chronology!
Even so, once the great drama allured me,
Which we all play on the stage universal;
"Going behind" the "green" curtain has cured me.
All my hope now is 'tis not a rehearsal.
Still I've played on; to old men's parts I grew from
Juvenile lead, as I'd risen from small-boy,
So I'll play on till I get my last cue from
Death, the old call-boy.
"Hum! Not at all bad," concluded Lord Silverdale. "I wonder who wrote it."
CHAPTER XV.
THE MYSTERIOUS ADVERTISER.
"Junior Widows' Club.
"Midnight."Dear Miss Dulcimer,
"Just a line to tell you what a lovely evening we have had. The baronet seemed greatly taken with Miss Jack and she with him, and they behaved in a conventional manner. Guy and I were able to have a real long chat and he told me all his troubles. It appears that he has just been thrown over by his promised bride under circumstances of a most peculiar character. I gave him the sympathy he needed, but at the same time thought to myself, aha! here is another member for the Old Maids' Club. You rely on me, I will build you up a phalanx of Old Maids that shall just swamp the memory of Hippolyte and her Amazons. I got out of Guy the name and address of the girl who jilted him. I shall call upon Miss Sybil Hotspur the first thing in the morning, and if I do not land her my name is not
"Yours cheerily,
"Wee Winnie."