s rear an area of a quarter
of a mile, to be paved with mosaic.--(_The Commission, fairly aghast and
out of breath, cause the witness to be removed._)

MR. GRUBB: I keep the accounts in a City house, as my father did before
me, and I hope my son will after me. I do not desire to see any
alteration in the Corporation, in the City, or anywhere. I was very
happy on my tall black stool for forty years, and now they've pulled a
house down in their precious improvements, and the sun falls right in my
eyes, and I have been obliged to move the desk at which my father took
his seat in 1789. Time of the French Revolution? I dare say it was; I
don't take much heed of politics, especially since BILLY PITT. You've
nobody like him now. I saw his funeral in Feberwerry, 1806--yes, I saw
that last year, but it was not equal to BILLY PITT'S. If you'll take my
advice you'll let well alone; but of course you won't. I don't know what
the world's coming to--the youngsters in our house are taking to
moustarshiars, and a young radical of sixteen declares he can't exist
without his shower-bath. Little enough such brats washed themselves in
my times--a dip in the New River once a month, or so, satisfied them,
and somehow we managed Trafalgar and Waterloo without your boards of
health, and missionaries in sewers, or whatever you call them. Once
more, I say, let well alone.

* * * * *

PRINCE _PUNCH_ TO PRINCE ALBERT.

Illustrious and excellent brother,
Don't consider me rude or unkind,
If, as from one Prince to another,
I give you a bit of my mind--
And I do so with all the more roundness,
As your conduct amongst us has shown
A propriety, judgment, and soundness
Of taste, not surpassed by my own.

You've respected JOHN BULL'S little oddities,
Never trod on the old fellow's corns;
Chose his pictures and statue--commodities
Wherein his own blunders he mourns.
And if you're a leetle more German
In these than I'd have you--what is't
Beyond what a critic may term an
Educational bias or twist?

On the summer-house walls, in your garden,
Of R.A.'s., fresco-painters you've made;
A demand which some of them won't pardon
Since good drawing's required for the trade.
You've roused to new life the Society
Of Arts, which had grown mighty flat;
And the Army to you, with propriety,
Attributes the famed ALBERT hat.

When the zeal for the Great