A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
Tommy (on his way to the Browns' Juvenile Garden Party). "Now, Nurse, remember, when once we've passed that Garden Gate, you don't belong to Me!"
FATHER WILLIAM.
(Latest Anglo-Teutonic Version, as repeated to the Caterpillar of State by Alice, in Blunderland, from vague and mixed reminiscences of Southey, Lewis Carroll, and the Reports of the Debates in the British Parliament and the German Reichstag, concerning the Home-Rule Bill and the Army Bill respectively.)
"I'm afraid I am changed, Sir." said Alice; "I can't remember things as I used—and I don't keep to the same author for ten minutes together!"
"Can't remember what things?" said the Caterpillar of State.
"Well, I've tried to sing 'Rule, Britannia', but it all came different, and got mixed up with 'The Watch on the Rhine!'" Alice replied, in a very melancholy voice.
"Repeat 'You are old, Father William,'" said the Caterpillar of State.
Alice folded her hands, and began:—