Mrs. Jones (who is consumed inwardly by just the same desire). "Yes, indeed, if it's true! But what makes you think she wants anything so utterly Despicable and Mean?"
Mrs. Brown (naïvely). "Because she was so precious hard on Mrs. Smith for trying to know Lord and Lady Snooks!"
"THE MISSING WORD." (?)
This is "The Maiden All Forlorn," bowed
down with burdens scarce to be borne,
Waiting a blast on Hope's clarion horn, loud
as the "Cock that crew in the morn."
Bucolic, wheat-crowned, she—Micawber
seems she, waiting for something to turn up—somehow.
Poor Agriculture! Care's merciless vulture
has harried her vitals, and furrowed her brow.
All are her friends—so each talker pretends—
from Chaplin the cheery, to Winchilsea wise,
And valorous Muntz, who the land-question
shunts, and "goes the whole hog" for Protection and rise;
With rollicking Lowther, who's no Malagrowther,
but larkily hints that the look-out is mournful;
And Nethersole, rustic and most nubibustic,
of law and of logic complacently scornful.
Poor latter-day Ceres! Quidnuncs and their
queries will hardly restore her her loved long-lost daughter,
(Fair Profits) whom Pluto ("the Foreigner")
stole. Vainly landlords and farmers breathe forth fire and slaughter
At Free Trade—that Circe on whom they've
no mercy,—and howl down the speeches of those she's enchanted.
The one "Missing Word" may sound wholly
absurd to cool sense, but to them 'tis the one thing that's wanted.
Hoare's wrath fiercely waxes. Reduction
of Taxes? Low Rents? More improvements in modes of production?
Pooh! Saunders and Riley must be far
more wily to get him to yield to their Red Rad seduction.
He stands midst his ruins (like Marius) making
of faith in Protection an open confession.
'Tis Duties on Food will alone do us good,
nought else can now cure "the prevailing depression."
The Missing Word! Maiden Forlorn, 'tis a
poser you put to the country, the cliques, and the classes,
The Landlord, The Farmer, the Labourer!
Say they agree, what response may you hope from "the Masses."
Those tiresome "Consumers"? Old myths
and new rumours are like the East wind, Maiden, mighty unfilling;
Bucolic ideas and crude panaceas won't help
you, though with them all Fad-dom is thrilling.
Yes, Fads make strange bedfellows, Winchilsea
tells us, in this far more wise than he's wholly aware of.
But Chaplin-cum-Walsh cannot turn back
time's tide. And Punch, who all interests has to take care of,
Must tell you in kindness, that only sheer
blindness can say of Protection the true Missing Word it is,
Though men, my poor Maiden, with worries
o'erladen, will lend ear to Quackdom's most arrant absurdities!