nely lighthouses beyond the Nore,
In English country houses crammed with Jews,
Men still will study, spell, perpend and pore
And read the Illustrated London News.

Our fathers read it at the earlier date
And twirled the funny whiskers that they wore
Ere little Levy got his first estate
Or Madame Patti got her first encore.
While yet the cannon of the Christian tore
The lords of Delhi in their golden shoes
Men asked for all the news from Singapore
And read the Illustrated London News.

But I, whose copy is extremely late
And ought to have been sent an hour before
I still sit here and trifle with my fate
And idly write another ballad more.
I know it is too late; and all is o'er,
And all my writings they will now refuse
I shall be sacked next Monday. So be sure
And read the Illustrated London News.

ENVOY

Prince, if in church the sermon seems a bore
Put up your feet upon the other pews,
Light a Fabrica de Tabagos Flor
And read the Illustrated London News.

Debating and lecturing went on, and an amusing letter from Bernard
Shaw shows the preparations for a Three Star Show--Shaw against
Chesterton with Belloc in the chair--in 1911. An exactly similar
debate years later was published in a slender volume entitled _Do We
Agree?_ On both occasions the crowd was enormous and many had to be
turned away. All three men were immensely popular figures and all
three were at their best debating in a hall of moderate size where
swift repartee could be followed by the whole audience.

Gilbert always shone on these occasions. The challenge of a debate
brought forth all his powers of wit and humour. His opponent
furnished material on which he could work. And how he enjoyed
himself! Frank Swinnerton once heard him laugh so much that he gave
himself hiccups for the rest of the evening. I heard him against Miss
Cicely Hamilton and against Mr. Selfridge and felt the only drawback
to be that the fight was so very unequal. The Selfridge debate in
particular was sheer cruelty, so utterly unaware was the business man
that he was being intellectually massacred by a man who regarded all
that Selfridge's stores stood for as the ruin of England.
Occasionally Mr. Selfridge looked bewildered when the audience rocked
with laughter at some phrase that clearly conveyed no meaning to him
at all. But so complete was his failure to understand what it was all
about that when