There is Punch looking on, he'll approve!" And she jest set 'er dogs on me, straight!
"Way-oh! Miss DIANNER!" I yells. "No offence! Don't be 'ard on a bloke!
Beg yer pardon, I'm sure!" Here a hound nipped my calf like a vice, and—I woke.
Leastways, I persoom it wos waking, if 'tother was sleep and a dream,
But I feel a bit moon-struck, dear boy. Spooks abound, and things ain't what they seem.
Mister Punch sez, "it served me quite right." Well, next time correspondence he'd carry
With satterlites, spesh'ly the Moon, he had better not drop upon 'ARRY.
"Poor fellow, I pity him," said Mr. Punch to Father TIME, as the pair passed away from the Lunar precincts together, bowing courteously, and a little apologetically, to 'ARRY's late hostess, who called off her dogs, and affably responded to their parting salutation. "Fact is," pursued the Sage, "my young friend 'ARRY, though smart and fin de siècle, in his way, is a little of 'the earth, earthy,' and lacks both the adventurousness and the tact of an Ixion."
"I presume," said the Scythe-bearer, "our inter-planetary peregrinations are now pretty nearly at an end—for this time?"