"I think I have had enough of this! We may have something of the same sort in our courts during a trial for murder; but, as a rule, our female blood-hungerers are either podgy matrons of sixty, or skinny old maids, of no (admitted) age at all! So give me England—dear old England!" He was set down at the Cannon Street Railway Station, and, collecting his luggage (which had followed by Grande Vitesse), he called a cab, and drove to Fleet Street.
And once more he was back in the ancestral halls, which had been decorated for the occasion with holly, and its white-berried companion. So, while Toby played "Home, Sweet Home!" Mr. Punch kissed Britannia under the Mistletoe, and wished her and the whole world, in a Wassail-bowl,
A Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
A HAGGARD ANNUAL.
(Specially written by Walker Weird, to usher in the Year 1890)
Unredd, the writer, and Spoylpaperos, the sketcher, were in the presence of a weird figure, that grotesquely genuflected before them.
"Fear not, my sons," explained the Weird, cutting a sad caper; "fear not. He-who-must-be-obeyed has need of ye. And, as He has need, ye must be well-bred," as we say in the yeast.
"And you are?—"