* * * *

[Illustration:
CULTCHAH!

_Suburban Belle_ (_to her Dressmaker_). "And I should
like a Medici Collar to my Tea-gown. Do you understand?
A Medici Collar--like that of the Venus de Medici!"]

* * * * *

"DAVY JONES'S LOCKER."

DAVY JONES, _loquitur:_--

"_Fifteen men on the dead man's chest. Hey! ho! and a bottle of rum!"_
Faith, that's a chorus I can rattle off with zest. Gratefully it
clatters upon DAVY'S tym-pa-num,
Like a devil's tattoo from Death's drum! Fi! Fo! Fum! These be very
parlous times for old legends of the sea.
VANDERDECKEN is taboo'd, the Sea Sarpint is pooh-pooh'd, but 'tis plain
as any pikestaff they can't disestablish Me!
DADDY NEPTUNE may delight in the Island trim and tight, where his
sea-dogs breed and fight, as in days of yore,
When old CHARLIE DIBDIN'S fancy piped free songs of JACK and NANCY, of
Jolly Salts at sea, and Old Tarry-Breeks ashore;
But if Britons rule the waves, as the grog-fired sailor raves, when he
dreams of glorious graves in the deep dark main,
DADDY NEPTUNE must allow DAVY shares his empire now, or the _Sultan_
and the _Howe_ have gone down in vain.

DADDY NEPTUNE loves me not. Plumped by storm or by shot, my Locker held
a lot in the days gone by,
But 'tis daily growing fuller. Is the British Tar off colour, are the
sea-dogs slower, duller, though as game to die?
Has Science spoilt their skill, that their iron pots so fill my old
Locker? How I thrill at the lumbering crash,
When a-crunch upon a rock, with a thundering Titan shock, goes some
shapeless metal block, to immortal smash?

Oh! it's real, rasping fun! Mighty hull, monster gun, all are mine ere
all's done; and the millions madly spent
On a lollopping wolloping kettle, with ten thousand tons of metal sink
as the Titans settle, turtle-turned, or wrenched and rent,
To my rocks and my ooze. I seem little like to lose by the "Progress"
some abuse, and the many crack up.
Ah! NEPTUNE, sour old lad, DAVY JONES may well look glad at the modern
Iron-clad, and thank ARMSTRONG and KRUPP!

Science and Salvage? Fudge! If _I_ am any judge, my sea-depths and salt
sludge will not lose by _them_.
NEP calls me callous mocker, but, according to _m