By great good fortune one of the Twickenham steamers was just then going by, and as Ariel Hicks, who was an amateur sailor, had some acquaintance with the skipper, he succeeded in procuring us some prog from the vessel. We had scarcely got our knives and forks well fixed in it, however, when the rain again began to fall in torrents, and we were glad to get away to our boats and Mackintoshes. Our voyage home was not less disastrous. The boat had been filled to about ankle deep by the late heavy rains, and we were obliged to sit all the way with our feet held up above high-water mark—except those who thought proper to put them in the wet _by way of relief_.
The next morning there was but one answer to all inquiries—"Our compliments, and we're very ill in bed of colds and rheumatisms; and it's all owing to _that_ Mister Nubibus."
[Sidenote: Now the Dog Days have begun, ten times hotter is the Sun. If, in walking Regent Street, crowds of puppies you should meet, do not kick the harm- less things, but recollect what Shakspeare sings, recollect the ancient say, every dog shall have his day.]
I scorn the rules of Fashion's fools, their scoffings and their sneers, To the ocean spray I haste away from people and from piers. I love to ride in the flowing tide 'mid the summer's gentle gales, And to seem the monarch of the sea, or at least the Prince of Whales. Like porpoise brave, in the briny wave, I flounder and I flirt, And now I stand upon the land—Oh, murder! where's my shirt? Yes, there it goes, and all my clothes—stay, sacrilegious wretches! Take coat and hat, and black cravat, but give me back my breeches! This is the spite of Mistress White—the foulest in the Nation— Because I scouted her machine; it is her machination. But, hark! I hear, there's some one near—in vain I hope to hide; They'll say I'm not a tidy man, for going in the tide. Oh! dire disgrace! I'll screen my face behind this fisher's basket, And those who do not know my name, I hope wont stop to ask it!
Treason doth never prosper—what's the reason? Why, when it prospers, none dare call it treason.
Never suffer a phrenologist to pass judgment on your head, or, ten to one, you may hear something unpleasant.
Pray, Ma'am, can you move ever such a little scrinch? Indeed, Marm, its quite unpossable for me to stir an inch.—Well, if I'd stay'd at Dorking I should have sat more at my ease, but I thought it best to leave such a nest, for we're all swarming alive with fleas.—Then I'll take my leave, Marm, to shift a little further from where you are sittin', for though I don't like to be crushed, I don't choose to be bitten.
