Various

“ If you are at loss for figures or facts, you will glance at them and make a bold statement. That daring declaration will, of course, be qualified with the announcement that it is made "to the best of your belief." You will turn your face towards the heads, and they will receive your mute appeal with sympathetic attention. They will not say anything, but will, I repeat, look wonders. They will not be comprehensible, but merely convincing.
Chairs will have been set for the members of the deputation. Some of your visitors will be personally known to you, and these you will greet with effusion. ”

“ It is one of the regulations of the Civil Service that the tail wags the dog. It stands to reason that a man who has grown grey in the Department is more likely to know the business of the bureau better than you who have just joined. So the spokesman of the deputation receives a polite communication informing him that you will be pleased to see him and his friends at such and such a date. ”

“ Then Miss Ada Blanche, as Dick, is altogether a hero of romance. She may sing the old songs of the halls, but she tempers her comic vocalism with a touch of sentiment that makes the whole world kin after it has had its grin. Miss Marie Montrose, too, is winsome, and so are Misses Agnes Hewitt, Eva Westlake, and Madge Lucas. In fact, the opening is well played by "all concerned." It is a wonder that, after the first innings of the morning performance, they should have scored so heavily in the evening's representation. But score they do, and are likely to "continue the movement" until Easter. ”

“ It does not take a prophet to predict that Dick will not only be the centre of numberless matinées, but the hero of at least a hundred nights. Dick will listen to his bells until Easter changes the music.
WHY DOST THOU SING?
Why dost thou sing? Is it because thou deemest
We love to hear thy sorry quavers ring?
My poor deluded girl, thou fondly dreamest!
Why dost thou sing?
Why dost thou sing? I ask thy sad relations—
They shake their heads, and answer with a sigh.
They can explain thy wild hallucinations
No more than I.
Why dost thou sing? ”

“ In the interesting extract you inclose they remark: "The conjecture that the word is the Hindi dām, dawm, an ancient copper coin, of which 1,600 went to a rupee (see Yule) , is ingenious, but has no basis in fact." That may be so. It is, nevertheless, a curious coincidence that at the present time the steady declension of the money value of the rupee, combined with its immoveable rating in the salary list, produces in the Civil Service and the army in India a state of feeling subject to which at least 1,600 dams go to a rupee. ”

“ But, by Jove, the Harrow boys will want a new version of their favourite cricket song, if prodigy be piled on prodigy, like Pelion on Ossa, in the fashion to which the Doctor during the first month of Summer in this year of Grace has accustomed us."
"The 'Doctor's' throne has never been disputed by anyone outside Bedlam," said a strong and sonorous voice.
Mr. Punch looked up, and perceived before him a stalwart six-footer in flannels, broad-belted at the equator, and wearing broad-brim'd silken stove-pipe. ”

“ You will ask several questions, and, when the spokesman has completed his harangue, you will look round to see if anyone desires to follow him. If there is any hesitation, commence your reply at once. But if anyone is ready, let him speak. It is far better that the eloquence of the deputation should come out (like the measles) rather than be suppressed. When your visitors have had their turn, then will come yours. ”

“ You fill the earth with joy instead of strife,
You'll be the first of all your race—for all the smiles they wore—
That gave the country what she asked—from 0 to '94!
PROTEST FROM THE PLAYGROUND.
Dear Mr. Punch,—I know you sympathise with boys, and isn't it a jolly shame the masters set us such awfully hard questions in exams.? My Report has just come home, and my Pater has given me a fearful rowing, and all because it says "Wilkins Terts. (that's me) has done badly in Examinations, and does not take the trouble to use what intelligence he possesses." ”

“ THE POLITE GUIDE TO THE CIVIL SERVICE. (By an Affable Philosopher and Courteous Guide.)
How to Receive a Deputation.
It does not take very long to make yourself quite at home as Secretary of the Public Squander Department—the office I will suppose you to be filling. You will find everything ready to your hand. All you will have to remember is this—the golden rule of the Service—that what was done last year, should be followed this, and arranged for next. Ministries may come and Cabinets may go, but the P. S. D. continues for ever. The policy of the office must never be disturbed. ”

“ If you have time you can chatter for an hour, but that chatter should be absolutely innocuous. Remember not to give yourself away. Mind, you are bound in office by nothing you have uttered out of it. Be genial. ”

“ Of course, you are furnished with the names of the friends in [pg 11] advance, and your private secretary (your right-hand man) makes it his special business to post you up in all that is necessary about them. The day arrives, and with it the deputation. If the House is sitting, you can see the Members in your own room. It looks well if you can show your accosters how small a chamber you occupy, and how hard at work you have to be at all hours of the day and night. Failing a meeting in Parliament, you can receive them in the Department itself. ”

“ The courteous official to whom you have made the suggestion will readily acquiesce, and then inform you that a deputation are anxious to see you upon the subject. And here you will find one of the disadvantages inseparably connected with making a question exclusively your own. The moment you come into power you are expected to do something. ”

“ Faith, the Briton who grudges a subscription to that doesn't deserve to see a sixer run out, or drink a flagon of genuine Boniface at the 'Bat and Ball' on Broad Halfpenny. Only wish we old willow-wielders in the Elysian Fields could contribute each our obolus. ”

“ In 1894-95 they have plenty to do, but only enough to satisfy the most fastidious. They are quite as amusing as usual, and when the curtain falls before "the transformation" people are rather inclined to ask for more than to say that they have had quite enough. ”

“ Lowther R. Cade (No. 2006) , is especially delicate and sudden; the tone is aluminium throughout, and although no children are represented as bodily on the machine, a Kineto-Phonograph inserted in the axle dexterously responds to a penny in the slot—when the youthful athletes are both seen and heard in the adjacent horse-pond. ”