[Ill.u.s.tration: A TRYING MOMENT

_Doris._ "Oh, Jack, here come those Sellerby girls! Do show them how beautifully you can punt."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HEIGHT OF IMPROPRIETY

_Miss Grundison, Junior._ "There goes Lucy Holroyd, all alone in a boat with young Snipson, as usual! So imprudent of them!"

_Her Elder Sister._ "Yes; how shocking if they were upset and drowned--without a chaperon, you know!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOCAL OPTION

_Captain of Clyde steamer_ (_to stoker, as they sighted their port_).

"Slack awee, Donal', slack awee"--(_he was interested in the liquors sold_)--"they're drencken haurd yenoo!!"]

'ARRY ON A 'OUSE-BOAT

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Dear Charlie,--It's 'ot, and no error!

Summer on us, at last, with a bust; Ninety odd in the shade as I write, I've a 'ed, and a thunderin'

thust.

Can't go on the trot at this tempryture, though I'm on 'oliday still; So I'll pull out my _eskrytor_, Charlie, and give you a touch of my quill.

If you find as my fist runs to size, set it down to that quill, dear old pal; Correspondents is on to me lately, complains as I write like a gal.

Sixteen words to the page, and slopscrawly, all dashes and blobs.

Well, it's true; But a quill and big sprawl is the fashion, so wot is a feller to do?

Didn't spot you at 'Enley, old oyster--I did 'ope you'd shove in your oar.

We 'ad a rare barney, I tell you, although a bit spiled by the pour.

'Ad a invite to 'Opkins's 'ouse-boat, prime pitch, and swell party, yer know, Pooty girls, first-cla.s.s lotion, and music. I tell yer we did let things go.

Who sez 'Enley ain't up to old form, that Society gives it the slip?

Wish you could 'ave seen us--and heard us--old boy, when aboard of our ship.

Peonies and poppies ain't in it for colour with our little lot, And with larfter and banjos permiskus we managed to mix it up 'ot.

My blazer was claret and mustard, my "stror" was a rainbow gone wrong!

I ain't one who's ashamed of his colours, but likes 'em mixed midd-lingish strong.

'Emmy 'Opkins, the fluffy-'aired daughter, a dab at a punt or canoe, Said I looked like a garden of dahlias, and showed up her neat navy blue.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Fair mashed on yours truly, Miss Emmy; but that's only jest by the way, 'Arry ain't one to brag of _bong jour tunes_; but wot I wos wanting to say Is about this here "spiling the River" which snarlers set down to our sort.

Bosh! Charlie, extreme Tommy rot! It's these sniffers as want to spile sport.

Want things all to theirselves, these old jossers, and all on the strictest Q. T.

Their idea of the Thames being "spiled" by the smallest suggestion of spree, Wy, it's right down rediklus, old pal, gives a feller the dithreums it do.

I mean going for them a rare bat, and I'm game to wire in till all's blue.

Who are they, these stuckuppy snipsters, as jaw about quiet and peace, Who would silence the gay "constant-screamer" and line the Thames banks with perlice; Who sneer about "'Arry at 'Enley," and sniff about "cads on the course,"

As though it meant "Satan in Eden"? I'll 'owl at sich oafs till I'm 'oa.r.s.e!

Sc.r.a.p o' sandwich-greased paper 'll shock 'em, a ginger-beer bottle or "Ba.s.s,"

Wot 'appens to drop 'mong the lilies, or gets chucked aside on the gra.s.s, Makes 'em gasp like a frog in a frying-pan. Br-r-r-r! Wot old mivvies they are!

Got nerves like a cobweb, I reckon, a smart banjo-tw.a.n.g makes 'em jar.

I'm toffy, you know, and no flies, Charlie; swim with the swells, and all that, But _I_'m blowed if this bunk.u.m don't make me inclined to turn Radical rat.

"Riparian rights," too! Oh scissors! They'd block the backwaters and broads, Because me and my pals likes a lark! Serve 'em right if old Burns busts their 'oards!

Rum blokes, these here Sosherlist spouters! There's Dannel the Dosser, old chap, As you've 'eard me elude to afore. Fair stone-broker, not wuth 'arf a rap-- Knows it's all Cooper's ducks with _him_, Charlie; won't run to a pint o' four 'arf, And yet he will slate me like sugar, and give me cold beans with his charf.

Sez Dannel--and dash his darned cheek, Charlie!--"Monkeys like you"--meaning _Me_!-- "Give the latter-day Mammon his chance. Your idea of a lark or a spree Is all Noise, Noodle-Nonsense, and Nastiness! Dives, who wants an excuse For exclusiveness, finds it in _you_, you contemptible coa.r.s.e-cackling goose!

"Riparian rights? That's the patter of Ahab to Naboth, of course; But 'tis pickles like you make it plausible, louts such as you give it force.

You make sweet Thames reaches Gehennas, the fair Norfolk Broads you befoul; You--_you_, who'd make Beulah a h.e.l.l with your blatant Bank Holiday howl!

"Decent property-owners abhor you; you spread your coa.r.s.e feasts on their lawns, And 'Arry's a hog when he feeds, and an ugly Yahoo when he yawns; You litter, and ravage, and c.o.c.k-sky; you romp like a satyr obscene, And the noise of you rises to heaven till earth might blush red through her green.

"You are moneyed, sometimes, and well-tailored; but come you from Oxford or Bow, You're a flaring offence when you lounge, and a blundering pest when you row; Your 'monkeyings' mar every pageant, your shindyings spoil every sport, And there isn't an Eden on earth but's destroyed when it's 'Arry's resort.

"Then monopolist Mammon may chuckle, Riparian Ahabs rejoice; There's excuse in your Caliban aspect, your hoa.r.s.e and ear-torturing voice, You pitiful c.o.c.kney-born Cloten, you slum-bred Silenus, 'tis you Spoil the silver-streamed Thames for Pan-lovers, and all the nymph-worshipping crew!"

I've "reported" as near as no matter! I don't hunderstand more than arf Of his patter; he's preciously given to potry and cla.s.sical charf.

But the cheek on it, Charlie! A Stone-broke! I _should_ like to give him wot for, Only Dannel the Dosser's a dab orf of whom 'tain't so easy to score.

But it's time that this bunk.u.m was bunnicked, bin fur too much on it of late-- Us on 'Opkins's 'ouse-boat, I tell yer, cared nix for the ink-spiller's "slate."

_I_ mean doin' them Broads later on, for free fishing and shooting, that's flat.

If I don't give them dash'd Norfolk Dumplings a doing, I'll eat my old 'at.

Rooral quiet, and rest, and refinement? Oh, let 'em go home and eat c.o.ke.

These fussy old footlers whose 'air stands on hend at a row-de-dow joke, The song of the skylark sounds pooty, but "skylarking" song's better fun, And you carn't do the rooral to-rights on a tract and a tuppenny bun.

As to colour, and kick-up, and sing-song, our party was fair to the front; But we wosn't alone; lots of toppers, in 'ouse-boat, or four-oar, or punt, Wos a doin' the rorty and rosy as lively as 'Opkins's lot, Ah! the swells sling it out pooty thick; _they_ ain't stashed by no ink-spiller's rot.

Bright blazers, and twingle-tw.a.n.g banjoes, and bottles of Ba.s.s, my dear boy, Lots of dashing, and splashing, and "mashing" are things every man must enjoy, And the petticoats ain't fur behind 'em, you bet. While top-ropes I can carry, It ain't soap-board slop about "Quiet" will put the clear kibosh on 'Arry.

"JAM" NON "SATIS."

(_A Lay of Medmenham, by a Broken-hearted Boating Man landing from the Thames, who was informed that, by the rules of the Hotel, visitors were not allowed jam with their tea if served in the garden._)

There's a river hotel that is known very well, From the turmoil of London withdrawn, Between Henley and Staines, where this strange rule obtains-- That you must not have jam on the lawn.