Said the spider to the fly.
'Twas the money-lending spider,
And "Oh no!" was the reply.
"I've read the Globe, and I'm secure,
With legs and wings still free!
No buzzi-ness with you. No! Your
'Fly-paper' won't catch me."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
In The Splendid Spur, "Q." has given his Pegasus his head—(Queer appearance this Pegasus with Q.'s head; but, as that's not my meaning, I must mind my P's and Q's)—and has spared neither whip nor splendid spur in his wild ride. Up behind, and clinging to "Q.," we are carried onward, amid clashing of arms, booming of cannon, pealing of bells, flashing of steel; anon we stumble over rocks, tumble over cliffs, hide in secret caves, secrete ourselves, like mad Lord High Chancellors, among Woolsacks; then after fainting, stabbing, dying, crying, sighing, "Jack's all alive again," and away we gallop, like Dick Turpin on Black Bess, and we leave girls dressed as boys behind us, and provincial Joans of Arc going out fighting for Church and King; and then, just as we are hanging suspended in mid-air over an awful precipice, there is a last gallant effort, and we awake to find ourselves gasping for breath, and awake to the fact that "Q.'s Pegasus" is a nightmare. It recalls memories of Louis Stevenson's Black Arrow, but distances it by miles, while here and there its vivid descriptions are equal to some of the glowing pictures in Shorthouse's John Inglesant. The Baron hereby recommends it as a stirring work for the novel-skipper in an idle hour.