g snow, and each
one was worth a hundred on an ordinary night.

At the hotel I put up holly and mistletoe, and produced from my trunks a
real Christmas pudding that my mother had made. We had it for supper,
and it was very good.

_Burned Hare Soup and Camphor Pudding in Pittsburg_

It never does to repeat an experiment. Next year at Pittsburg my little
son Teddy brought me out another pudding from England. For once we were
in an uncomfortable hotel, and the Christmas dinner was deplorable. It
began with _burned hare soup_.

"It seems to me," said Henry, "that we aren't going to get anything to
eat, but we'll make up for it by drinking!"

He had brought his own wine out with him from England, and the company
took him at his word and _did_ make up for it.

"Never mind!" I said, as the soup was followed by worse and worse.
"There's my pudding!"

It came on blazing and looked superb. Henry tasted a mouthful.

"Very odd," he said, "but I think this is a camphor pudding."

He said it so politely--as if he might easily be mistaken. My maid in
England had packed the pudding with my furs! It simply reeked of
camphor.

So we had to dine on Henry's wine and L. F. Austin's wit. This dear,
brilliant man, now dead, acted for many years as Henry's secretary, and
one of his gifts was the happy knack of hitting off people's
peculiarities in rhyme. This dreadful Christmas dinner at Pittsburg was
enlivened by a collection of such rhymes, which Austin called a "Lyceum
Christmas Play."

Everyone roared with laughter until it came to the verse of which he was
the victim, when suddenly he found the fun rather laboured.

The first verse was spoken by Loveday, who announces that the "Governor"
has a new play which is "_wonderful_"--a great word of Loveday's.

George Alexander replies:

But I say, Loveday, have I got a part in it,
That I can wear a cloak in and look smart in it?
Not that I care a fig for gaudy show, dear boy--
But juveniles must _look_ well, don't you know, dear boy;
And shall I lordly hall and tuns of claret own?
And may I murmur love in dulcet baritone?
Tell me, at least, this simple fact of it--
Can I beat Terriss hollow in one act of it?[1]

Norman Forbes:

Pooh for Wenman's[2] bass! Why should he make a boast of it?
If he has a voice, I have got the ghost of it!
When I pitch it low, you may say how weak it is,
When I pitch it high, heavens! what a sque