years to come shall knot not
The athlete's guerdon for thy head
But crown the wigs of Serbs and what not.

There were who sought thy shame to shield
From men that mocked the sea-kings' fibres
By opening funds, but these appealed
To singularly few subscribers.

"A trifling hundred thou.," they wrote,
"To ease the joints and stiffening sockets."
The public acted like a goat,
They kept the cash inside their pockets.

So mused I sadly; and since new
Sensations oft from grief can jerk us
I went to see the "Wonder Zoo,"
Herr HAGENBECK's surprising circus.

There where the Model Homes were built
That left some while ago the bard bored
I watched the Nubian lions wilt
In imitation lairs of cardboard.

And sudden, whilst I saw them roll--
Those monster cats--beyond their ha-ha,
A solace came into my soul,
I murmured _sotto voce_, "Aha!

"If but yon sunken fence were filled,
So that these grim-faced brutes might cross it,
Are there no athletes here undrilled,
Veiled by their adipose deposit?

"In slothful ease Britannia shirks;
But haply, near these sundering ditches,
Some mute inglorious miler lurks
Under a morning coat and breeches.

"Oh, if the gulf were bridged! What late,
What all undreamed-of hurdle-winners
Might blossom from a natural hate
Of forming parts of feline dinners?

"Yes, even I, the motley fool,
Starting from scratch and willy nilly
Might prove it needs no Yankee school
To knock the level hundred silly.

"The gymnast's art should all be mine
As, clambering from the scene of pillage,
I roosted safe in yon red pine
(Left over from the Russian village).

"Ay, and if all old tales are wrong
And lions climb--from that asylum
I should come out extremely, strong,
Using my brolly for a pilum."

Evoe.

* * * * *

THE INDOMITABLES.

There is trouble ahead for some of our Peers.

I have just come across three fore-warnings of it.

The first was in the train. A fat man was telling his grievance to a
thin man.

"I'll stick at nothing," he said. "I mean to see this through. The idea!
Why, we've only been in the house seven weeks. Remember that. Remember
also that gas is half-a-crown a thousand. And understand that we're most
economical; we're always turning the lights down, my wife and I. Now
then; in spite of this the ras