Various

“ They were sitting close together in their characteristic attitudes; the knees slightly limp, and the arms hanging loosely by their sides; Lord Raggie Tattersall in the peculiar kind of portable chair he most affected; Fustian Flitters in a luxurious sort of handbarrow. The lemon-tinted November light of a back street in a London slum floated lovingly on their collapsed forms, and on the great mass of weary cabbage-stalks that lay dreaming themselves daintily to death in the gutter at their feet. ”

“ Fustian Flitters, with his peculiar smile of inscrutable obviousness.
"Beautiful rose-coloured children!" murmured Lord Raggie, dreamily; "how sad to think that they will all grow up and degenerate into pork-butchers, and generals, and bishops, and absurdly futile persons of that sort! But listen; it is so sweet of them—they are going to sing an exquisite little catch I composed expressly for them, a sort of mellifluously raucous chant with no tune in particular. That is where it is so wonderful. ”

“ A heart once pregnant with a Righteous Plan,
Hands that the rod of Empire used to wield,
And whacked to ecstasy the human Man.
Dear Mr. Punch, may you live for ever; or, failing that, may no rude spoiler mar your "animated bust." ”

“ The tradition of many generations of officials has been to regard outsiders as enemies. There may be small jealousies in a Government Department, but every man in the place will stand shoulder to shoulder with his fellow to repel the attacks of non-civilians. And the word "attack" has many meanings. Practically, everything is an attack. If an outsider asks a question, the query is an attack. If an outsider complains, the grievance is an attack. If an outsider begs a favour, the petition is an attack. ”

“ And the shrill voices of the young choristers, detaching themselves one by one from the melodic fabric in which they were enmeshed, grew fainter and fainter still—until they slipped at last into silence. "Fustian, did you notice? Our rose-white adherents have abandoned us. They have run away—'done a guy,' as vulgarians express it." ”

“ I read on, dashing all unknowing to my fate. "It is the duty," I saw, "of every man of education, experience, and leisure in the village who has the welfare of his country at heart to study the Act, and to make it his business that his fellow-parishioners shall know what the Act does, and how the greatest advantage can be obtained from its working." ”

“ Odds hilts and blades! I find a man may have a deal of valour in him and not know it!... Your words are a grenadier's match to my heart! I believe courage must be catching! I certainly do feel a kind of valour rising as it were—a kind of courage as I may say.—Odds flints, pans and triggers! ”

“ They have been duly received by the Public Squander Department, and retained. It is a rule of the bureau that anything that has been once accepted shall be kept for ever. That is to say, if it can be clearly proved that the things retained can be useful somewhere else. You look round with satisfaction, and then greet with effusion the chief clerk. He has been waiting to receive you. As you do not know the ropes, it is advisable to be civil to every one. Later on, when you have a talented assistant to prompt you, you can allow your cordiality to cool. ”

“ She is as bright as sunshine in the comic scenes, and when she has to say good-bye to her newly-married daughter, she glides from peals of merriment into sobs of sorrow that are intensely touching because they are intensely natural. ”

“ Please say no more about it, Sir Rupert. I know now that you were entirely innocent of any——
Sir Rup. (horrified) . Good Gad! you didn't suppose I had any hand in fixing up that booby trap, or whatever it was, did you? Young fellows will get bear-fighting and playing idiotic tricks on one another, and you seem to have been the victim—that's how it was. Have you had anything to eat since you came? ”

“ They think we are dangerous. How can one tell? Perhaps we are. Give me a light, Raggie, and I will be brilliant for you alone. Come, the young Shoeblack bends to his brush, and the pale-faced Coster watches him in his pearly kicksies ”

“ True melody is always quite tuneless!"
One by one the shrill, passionate young voices chimed in, until the very lamp-posts throbbed and rang with the words, and they seemed to wander away, away among the sleeping pageant of the chimney-pots, away to the burnished golden globes of the struggling pawnbroker.
"Please ter remember. The Fifth o' November. For Gun Powder Plot.
Ter blow up the King and 'is Porliment. Shall never. Be. Forgot!
'Oller, Boys, 'Oller!"
Lord Raggie, with his head bent, listened with a smile parting the scarlet thread of his lips, a smile in his pretty hollow eyes. ”

“ He will put in something neat about the Milestones as a concession to your labours in that direction.
"My dear Sir," you will reply with a smile, "don't bother yourself about them. I can keep them quite safe. We have nothing to fear from them."
The face of the chief clerk will beam. He will see that you are one of them. Milestones for the future are to be defended, not attacked. He will accept you as an illustrious bureaucratic recruit. He will see that you are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of the office. Could anything be better? ”

“ After a successful life I have settled down with my wife and family to the repose of a truly rural existence. "You should come down and live in the country," I am never tired of telling my friends. "Good air, beautiful milk, and, best of all, fresh eggs." I don't know why, but you are always expected to praise the country eggs. ”

“ But I was not to be denied. One evening, as I was walking through the village, I met Robert Hedger, "Black Bob," as he is always called. He is a farm hand, and for some reason looked upon as a leader of men in the village. ”

“ Most probably one of your predecessors has given an official dinner in your room, and the armour is the result of the importunity of his Private Secretary.
"I say, Tenterfore," your predecessor has observed, "don't you think these walls are a bit bare? Don't you think you could get them done up a bit?"
"Certainly, Sir," Tenterfore has replied, and the result of his energy has been the trophies you see around you. Tenterfore has applied to the people at the Tower, or Holyrood, or Dublin Castle, and got up quite a collection of quaint old arms. ”

“ Is not a foe to pooh-pooh! Not at all!
Odds jigs and tabors! Such bellicose neighbours
Are horridly awkward; they will force one's hand,
A chap who unceasingly brags and belabours
Is valued, no doubt, in a Donnybrook band ”

“ Within its modest limits of space will be found not only some of the best stories of the day, but stories the best told. Not a superfluous word spoils the gems, which have been ruthlessly taken out of their setting and spread widecast through the circulation of many newspapers reviewing the work. ”

“ I seems to have lost all my good sperrits, and am as quiet and as mopish as if I was out of a sitiation, which in course I am not, and am not at all likely to be. My wife bothers me by constent inquiries about the comin change on the 9th, but she ort to no, as I noes, that the cumming new Lord Mare is jest the same good, kind, afabel Gent as the noble Gent as is a going afore him, and who ewery body loved and respected, and who allers showed me ewery posserbel kindness. ”

“ The Baron dare not say more, lest he should let the Dickie out of the cage. The only disappointment, to old-fashioned novel-readers, at least, who love justice to be done, and the villain to receive worse than he has given, is in the moral of the tale ”

“ Say that you have accepted your appointment, and are prepared to take up at once the duties appertaining to your new position. No doubt during your "attacks" upon the Milestones you will have come across several of the officials of the Public Squander Department. So when you arrive in the hall of your new bureau you will be recognised at once by most of the messengers. You will be conducted with deference to your new quarters. You will find them very comfortable. ”

“ Undershell (in the dressing-room, to himself) . I wonder how long I've been locked up here—it seems hours! I almost hope they've forgotten me altogether.... Someone has come in.... If it should be Sir Rupert!! Great Heavens, what a situation to be found in by one's host!... Perhaps it's only that fellow Spurrell; if so, there's a chance. (The door is unlocked by Tredwell, who has lighted the candles on the dressing-table.) It's the butler again. Well, I shall soon know the worst! ”

“ Nothing better than this has been seen for a long time in a London theatre. Then Mr. Gilbert Hare (inheritor of his father's cleverness) causes roars of laughter by his comical sketch of a man with a cold. But here, again, the mirth is tempered with sympathy. The echo of the "ha, ha, ha," in spite of its inappropriateness, is "Poor fellow!" Mr. Thorne, too, is good, and so is Mr. Righton, and so is everyone concerned.
FINISHING TOUCHES.
["Canon Furse said he believed no man's education was complete who did not attend public meetings."—Daily News.] ”

“ The reader will find himself enjoying the rare privilege of intimacy with a cultured mind, and a heart so kindly that temptation to say smart things at the expense of others, which underlies the possession of overflowing humour, is resisted, apparently without effort. ”

“ By-the-by, the present Lord Mare, jest to show his ermazin libberality, acshally arsked jest a few of the County Countsellers to his larst great bankwet larst week, and werry much they seemed to injoy theirselves, and I must say, behaived like reel gennelmen, tho' sum of the speeches, speshally them by Lord Hailsbery and Mr. Richer, must have been rayther staggerers for them to bear. ”