* * * * *

[Illustration: INFELICITOUS QUOTATIONS.

_Hostess_. "WON'T YOU TRY SOME OF THAT JELLY, HERR SILBERMUND?"

_Herr Silbermund_ (_who has just been helped to Pudding_). "ACH, ZANK
YOU, NO. I VOOT 'RAHZER PEAR VIZ ZE ILLS VE HAF, ZAN VLY TO OZZERS ZAT
VE KNOW NOT OF.'" [_Herr S. is particularly proud of his knowledge of
Shakspeare._]]

* * * * *

"WORSE THAN EVER!"

FARMER SMITH _LOQUITUR_:--

"To market, to market, to buy a fat pig!"
Yes, so runs the old-fashioned nursery rhyme,
And a porker that's plump, and round-barrel'd and big,
Is good business,--or used to be once on a time.
But now, they're the horriblest nuisance on earth
Are Pigs, and a great deal more plague than they're worth.

I begin to believe 'twould be better by far
If Pigs, like the Dodo, extinct could become.
They involve one in nothing but jangle and jar,
And as to large profits, why that's all a hum.
"Please the Pigs?" That's absurd, a mere obsolete wheeze,
For Pigs are precisely the beasts you _can't_ please!

Gee up, _Dobbin_, old lad! Home's in sight; you have borne
My burden, and that of my basket, right well,
Your carrying power some neighbours would scorn,
But you're sound and good grit, though you mayn't look a swell.
We're starting, lad, after our short half-way halt,
If we don't make good time it will not be our fault.

We did the first stretch unexpectedly slick,
My basket well loaded a feather-weight seemed,
The road was so smooth, and your canter so quick,
'Twas better, old lad, than we either had dreamed.
A great disappointment to some folk, I think.
Then we halted half-way for a rest and a drink.

That big Irish Pig, which had plagued us so oft.
Was away,--running after its head or its tail!
Oh joy, _Dobbin_, dear, to jog on, and go soft,
No row, no obstruction by hedge-gap or rail.
Ah, then they discovered the pace and the pith
Of _Dobbin_ the dull, and his mount, Farmer SMITH.

Now all seems smooth sailing! Hillo! What was that?
A squeak? Nay, it sounds like a chorus of squeaks!
Don't shy, my dear _Dobbin_--you'll shake off my hat.
The lane here grows narrow. Who's there? No one speaks.
But that raucous "hrumph! hrumph!" that cacophonous yell!
'Tis Pig-noise, and Irish--I know it so well.

It is right in the road, it is plump in the gap.
Steady,