"FROM--THIS--DAY--FORWARD."

_Bridegroom._ "TILL THIS DAY FORTNIGHT!"]

* * * * *

BYLES FOR THE BILL.

[In a letter addressed to _The Times_, headed "PASS THE BILL AND TAKE
THE CONSEQUENCES," Sir WILLIAM BYLES makes the statement:--"I for one
will take the risk without hesitation."]

Darkling I sing. Ere Tuesday's hour for tea
Shall set this doggerel in the glare of day,
He who adjured us still to "wait and see,"
He will have tweaked the mystic veil away,
And you will know--whatever it may be.

You, but not I; for I have yet to wait.
Far South, beneath (I hope) a stainless sky
The pregnant news shall find me, rather late,
Powerless to watch the ball with steadfast eye
Through sheer distraction as to Ulster's fate.

Fain would I have upon my well-pricked ear
Such tidings fall as prove that party pride
Yields with a mutual grace. And yet I fear
These desperadoes on the Liberal side--
BILL BYLES (for one), the Bradford Buccaneer.

"Pass"--so he boldly writes--"the Bill and take
(His conscience will not let him run to "damn")
"The Consequences." That is why I shake
Even as when the shorn and shivering lamb
Observes the wolf advancing in his wake.

I see him bear, this dreadful man of gore,
A brace of battleaxes at the slope;
I see him fling his gauntlet on the floor,
And (shouting, "BYLES for REDMOND and the POPE!")
Let loose the Nonconformist Dogs of War.

Ah! take and hide me in some hollow lair,
Red hills of Var! and ye umbrella-pines,
Cover me like a gamp! I cannot bear
This Apparition with its armed lines
Humming the strain, "_Sir BYLES s'en va-t-en guerre_."

_March 7._

O. S.

* * * * *

THE END OF IT ALL.

It was the opening of the new Parliament of 1919 A.D.

They had got IT.

If you can't guess what they had got you must be obtuse.

The great procession of Women M.P.'s formed in Trafalgar Square. Behind
them were the ruins of the National Gallery (the work of the immortal Miss
Podgers, B.Sc.); before them were the fragments of the Nelson Column (Miss
Tunk's world-famous feat).

The free fight concerning the leadership of the procession was settled by
the intervention of mounted police. They decided that all the would-be
leaders should march abreast with two armed policemen between each pair of
them to prevent casualti