Various

“ I'm sure I don't, Rupert—at least, no more than everybody else. Dear Rohesia is so strong-minded and advanced and all that, she takes such an interest in all the new movements and things, that she can't understand contradiction; she is so democratic in her ideas, don't you know. ”

“ Rohesia says that's the usual way with literary persons one doesn't happen to have met. And he wrote to say he would come.
Sir Rup. So we're to have a morbid revolutionary poet staying in the house, are we? He'll come down to dinner in a flannel shirt and no tie—or else a red one—if he don't bring down a beastly bomb and try to blow us all up! You'll find you've made a mistake, Albinia, depend upon it.
Lady Culv. Dear Rupert, aren't you just a little bit narrow? You forget that nowadays the very best houses are proud to entertain Genius—no matter what their opinions and appearance may be. ”

“ Punch," said Sir Roger de Coverley earnestly, "my only wish is that Merry England, in going in for the New Politics may not lose the old humanities and humours and heartinesses."
"As described, Sir Roger, in your own words, of which your presence and the festive season, remind me:
'I have often thought that it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of winter. It is the most dead, uncomfortable time of the year, when the poor people would suffer very much from their poverty and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christmas gambols to support them. ”

“ But there's no such movement; the dire thorax-torture is kept up.
Manure-desiccation sets up irritation and then inflammation will follow,
Your tonsils get red, you've a pain in your head, and you find it a labour to swallow.
And as to your nose!—well, I do not suppose for that organ reformers feel pity,
Or I really can't think every species of stink would find such ready home in the City.
There's nothing more foul than your grim Asphalte-ghoul, —save that dread Tophet Valley of Bunyan's!—
And then manhole whiffs! Or nose-torturing sniffs from the shops that sell "Sausage-and-onions"!! ”

“ Surely it is wise and prudent to conciliate the clever young men who might inflame the masses against us. Rohesia thinks so; she says it may be our only chance of stemming the rising tide of Revolution, Rupert!
Sir Rup. Oh, if Rohesia thinks a revolution can be stemmed by asking a few poets down from Saturday to Monday, she might do her share of the stemming at all events.
Lady Culv. But you will be nice to him, Rupert, won't you?
Sir Rup. I don't know that I'm in the habit of being uncivil to any guest of yours in this house, my dear, but I'll be hanged if I grovel to him, you know ”

“ As soon as notification made of birth of prince, Szlumper took off his coat and set to work. First telegraphed to happy Duke and Duchess of Teck at White Lodge. Then bethought him of happier father; so Duke of York hears from Szlumper who "trusts Her Royal Highness and son are doing well." Szlumper's appetite growing with what it feeds upon, he next approaches Her Majesty with "loyal and sincere congratulations." Finally, the Prince and Princess of Wales at Marlborough House hear from him. Szlumper always signs his name tout court, like a peer of the realm. ”

“ Poetry isn't much in our way; and a poet will be, confoundedly!
"What on earth possessed you to ask a literary fellow down here?"
Lady Culv. I really couldn't help it, Rupert. Rohesia insisted on my having him to meet her. She likes meeting clever and interesting people. And this Mr. Blair, it seems, has just written a volume of verses which are finer than anything that's been done since—well, for ages!
Sir Rup. What sort of verses?
Lady Culv. Well, they're charmingly bound. I've got the book in the house, somewhere. Rohesia told me to send for it ”

“ Punch, "all that was really good—like this—in the Good Old Times you know can be preserved in the Better New Times we hope for. There will be plenty of work for the Sir Rogers, the Dr. Syntaxes, for your humane Vicar, Doctor, and your Squire Hearty and Squire Bounty, in the New Village as in the old one. We love the old country customs, but our country dance cannot for ever be to the same old tune—even the loved and time-honoured one of 'Sir Roger de Coverley'!" ”

“ No, nor are cleanliness, sanitation, education, fair wage, an independent spirit, and the capacity for self-government. These things, dear Doctor, make the Man, not the Picture, and Man-making is—or should be—the aim of modern statesmanship. ”

“ Scene from "Caste," adapted for representation in the House of Commons.
Eccles (played by Don't Keir H-rd-e) addresses the Royal Infant. "Everybody in the House is sacrificed for you! And to think that a Working Man, a Member of the House of Commons, and one of the Committee of the Banded Brothers for the Regeneration of Human Kind, by means of equal diffusion of intelligence and equal division of property, should want the price of half a pint, while you are lying in the lap of luxury!" ”

“ My misguided and stubborn friend, Sir Andrew Freeport, should have lived to see this day, and acknowledge the prescience of the testy old Tory he was wont to deride."
"Tilly-vally, my dear Sir Roger," returned the host, cheerily; "trouble not thine honest soul with such gruesome forebodings. 'The old order changeth, yieldeth place to new.' But 'tis 'lest one good custom should corrupt the world.' Cymon, with a vote, will not capsize the Commonwealth, any more than the British workman hath done, despite the prognostications of Bob Lowe and other cocksure clever ones. ”

“ And when the thowsends and tens of thowsends of peeple red the gloing acounts as filled the Press a day or too arterwards, they little thort perhaps of the many risks as the pore Waiter ran to save hisself and the reporters from the fallin Grannit, and the blocks of mettel, as every now and then fell about us! ”

“ Such a nuisance it's turning out so wet with all these people in the house, isn't it?
Sir Rupert. Well, I was thinking that, as there's nothing doing out of doors, I might get a chance to knock off some of these confounded accounts, but— (resignedly) —if you think I ought to go and look after——
Lady Culv. No, no, the men are playing billiards, and the women are in the Morning Room—they're all right. I only wanted to ask you about to-night. You know the Lullingtons and the dear Bishop and Mrs. Rodney, and one or two other people, are coming to dinner? Well, who ought to take in Rohesia? ”

“ Thursday.—Don't Keir Hardie confided to House to-night the interesting fact that in particular he Don't Keir for the Royal Family, and is "indisposed to associate himself" with effort to do them special honour. Like old Eccles in Caste, he upbraids the baby in the cradle with being a young aristocrat. Yet there are limits even to his uncompromising Republicanism. The question before House is the presentation to Her Majesty of address of congratulation on birth of son of Duke and Duchess of York. ”

“ It seems as if the plan of the play was started from the idea of an interview between the great Napoleon, when Emperor, with a washerwoman whose bill for washing and mending he, when only a poor lieutenant, had been unable to discharge. This scene is the scene par excellence of the piece. It is here that both Madame Réjane and M. Duquesne are at their very best. Besides this, and the scene between Napoléon, La Reine Caroline, and Madame de Bulow, when there is a regular family row admirably acted by M. Duquesne, with the tongs, and Mlles. ”

“ MR. PUNCH AT WHITE LODGE, RICHMOND."Don't make a Noise, or else you'll wake the Baby"
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
About the reminiscences of George Augustus Sala there lingers a before-the-Flood flavour which abashes my Baronite. In Things I have Seen, and People I have Known, two volumes, published by Cassell, there is nothing merely modern. The only thing G. A. S. doesn't appear to have seen was the world in the state of chaos, and almost solitary among the people he has not known was Methuselah. ”

“ Eh, for me? just wait, will you, in case there's an answer. (As he opens it.) Ah, this is from Spavin—h'm, nuisance! "Regret unable to leave at present, bronchitis, junior partner could attend immediately if required.—Spavin." Never knew he had a partner.
Tredw. I did hear, Sir Rupert, as Mr. Spavin was looking out for one quite recent, being hasthmatical, m'lady, and so I suppose this is him as the telegram alludes to.
Sir Rup. Very likely. Well, he's sure to be a competent man. We'd better have him, eh, Albinia? ”

“ But it's an infernal nuisance, 'pon my word it is; you must look after him yourself, I can't. I don't know what to talk to geniuses about; I've forgotten all the poetry I ever learnt. And if he comes out with any of his Red Republican theories in my hearing, why——
Lady Culv. ”