Shaks. (chortling softly). Why, who knows? One day, perchance,—æons hence, of course,—some puzzle-headed pragmatist may propound the preposterous question, "Who wrote Punch?" From out the fathomless deeps of its many thousand wit-stored tomes the Donelly of that dim and distant future may readily dip up, in his poor bucket, a Cryptogram, to show that they were produced by a scientific syndicate, including Faraday and Mill, Huxley and Herbert Spencer, Darwin and the Duke of Argyll.
[At the mention of the Olympian and autocratic Scottish Sciolist, Homeric laughter bursts forth anew in yet fuller force.
Bacon. Prithee, sweet Will, don't! Shadowy sides can ache, I find, and then, what will Rhadamanthus think?
Mr. P. As Jupiter did when the adventurous Ixion intruded into Olympus, perhaps. Well, well, put aside that preposterous book, which, as you, my Lord Bacon, said of the Aristotelian method, is "only strong for disputations and contentions, but barren of works for the benefit of the life of man," and, I may add, of immortals.
Shaks. (yawning). Not all reading, my Francis, makes a full man—save in the sense in which one may be filled with the East wind. My books were men. Not much that is novel in Nature, human or otherwise, to study in these shadowy realms. I miss the "Mermaid," and the mazy world which was my stage. Donelly's book is dull, however. Canst furnish us with a substitute, excellent Mr. Punch?
Mr. P. That can I, sweet Will. To that end indeed came I hither. As a popular stage-character—not one of your own—saith, "I hope I don't intrude." Ah, I thought not; but you needn't try (ineffectually) to wring my hands off, the pair of you. Behold!!!!!!
As Mr. Punch reluctantly turned his back upon Elysium, he left the two Illustrious Shades, prone side by side and cheek by jowl upon an asphodel bank, eagerly and diligently perusing his
Ninety-Third Volume!
