"WHERE A FOOTMAN IS KEPT."
"But why do you want to Leave, Sarah? It's not a Hard Place, and John does most of your Work?"
"Yes, Ma'am! But—a—John has no Conversation?"
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
Thank you, Mrs. Hungerford (says the Baron, bowing his very best to the talented authoress), for one of the cheeriest, freshest, and sweetest—if I may be allowed to use the epithet—of one-volume'd stories I've read for many a day. The three daughters are delightful. I question whether you couldn't have done better with "two only, as are generally necessary;" but perhaps this is ungrateful on my part. Anyway, two out of the three lovers are scarcely worth mentioning, so I don't think I am far wrong, for the team was a bit unmanageable, well as you had them in hand. Excellent, too, is the sketch of Dad, though that of Aunt Jane is a trifle too grotesque, and will, perforce, remind those of your readers, who are theatre-goers, of Mr. Penley in petticoats, now actually playing "Charley's" irresistibly comic Aunt at the Globe Theatre. But it is all good, and not too good to be true. Likewise, my dear Madame, you have given us two life-like sketches, one of a car-driver with his vicious mare, and the other of Molly's little dog. In conclusion, I congratulate you, Mrs. Hungerford, as also the publisher, Mr. Heinemann, on having secured so good a specimen of the material for sale in this Hungerford market, says
The Baron de B.-W.
HOME, CHEAP HOME!
"Thine be a cot beside a hill,"
Hums Mrs. Haweis in our ear;
"Such cots are in the market still,
At only thirty pounds a year.
"Then, as for furnishing the fold,
Another fifty pounds will do it;
But mind you stick to what is old,
Nor carry modern rubbish to it!