TENDER PASSAGES.
He (tenderly). "Yes; when it's done again, you must really see the Blondin Donkey!"
She (sincerely). "I will. I'll look out for it, and, when I do see it, I will think of You!!"
VIRTUES OF OMISSION.
People—Mr. Imprey, Mr. George Smith (of Coalville), and others—are actually to be found contending for the barren honour of having invented that terrible nuisance of a catch-phrase, "Three Acres and a Cow!" Strange and morbid perversion of ambition! As well fight for the deep discredit of having been the first to hit upon such kindred controversial horrors as the boring and question-begging "gags" of "Law and Order," "Patriot first, and Party-man afterwards," "Hand over to the tender mercies, &c.," "Disintegration of the Empire," or even that most hackneyed of political phrases, "Grand Old Man" itself. Now, if any one took credit to himself for never, never having uttered the "Acre and Cow" Shibboleth, or made use of any others of these soul-sickening bits of polemical claptrap, Mr. Punch could understand, and admire, and envy. There be things that everybody—possessed of sense and sobriety—would "rather not have said."