mehow I feel I can scarcely believe you.

Yes! It's too much to remember the past--
Here, amid shrimps, and agilities nameless;
Glaciers gigantic, and Restaurants vast
Chime not with sands and a tablecloth shameless;
Smoking a pestilent, sea-side cigar,
Mewed in a lodging with children and nurses,
Epitaphs gorgeous of far "_Dolce far_,"
Curse you with paterfamiliar curses!

* * * * *

THE UGLY FACE: A MORAL DUTY

[Illustration: "A ready-made Comedian with fifty quid a week."]

Some years ago a babe was born--I need not name the place--
With a puffy, pasty, podgy, gutta-percha sort of face,
Which wrinkles sub-divided into funny little bits,
While beady eyes peered cunningly behind two tiny slits.

His nose was like a mushroom of the foreign button sort,
His form was quaint and chubby, and his legs were extra short;
That his nurse spoke like SAPPHIRA, I have always had a fear,
When she said he was a "beauty," and a "pretty little dear."

Yes, such remarks were really of the truth, a dreadful stretch,
For, in point of fact, that baby was a hideous little wretch;
And in course of time he grew up--though a loving mother's joy--
Into quite a champion specimen of the genius "ugly boy."

At school his teasing comrades gave him many comic names,
And he became the victim of all sorts of naughty games;
Nor did the master like him, for he felt that such a face,
Mid a row of ruddy youngsters, was extremely out of place.

In time, his father placed him in the City--as a clerk--
Where his personal appearance excited much remark;
But he fell out with his principal, whose customers complained,
That his clerk was making faces, and said "Bosh!" when he explained.

On perceiving from the office that he never would be missed,
As Mr. GILBERT puts it, he determined to enlist;
And so one summer afternoon he started forth in search
Of a Sergeant who perambulates close by St. Martin's Church.

The Sergeant burst out laughing when he'd uttered his request,
And declared that, of a batch of jokes he knew, this was the best;
"'Tis a pity you're too short, my lad," he then went on to say,
"For wid _that_ face ye'd froighten ivery inimy away!"

In a fountain which played handy--it was near Trafalgar Square--
He was rushing off to drown himself, the victim of despair,
When he knocked against a person he'd not seen for qu