LORD SALISBURY. "NOT BY TELEPHONE, THANK YOU!!!"
[_Telephone between London and Paris opened, Monday, March 23rd._]]
[Illustration: SUFFERING ON THE "SILVER STREAK."
THESE GENTLEMEN (AFTER A FEW HOURS' REST) DECLARED UNANIMOUSLY IN FAVOUR OF THE PROPOSED CHANNEL TUBULAR RAILWAY.]
In healthier times, when friends would meet Their friends in chamber, park, or street, Each, as hereunder, each would greet.
Tour level hand went forth; you clasped Your crony's; each his comrade's grasped-- If roughly, neither friend was rasped.
Such was the good old-fashioned one Of honest British "How d'ye do?" I think it manly still--don't you?
But _now_, when smug acquaintance hails A set that would be "smart," but fails, Another principle prevails.
The arm, in lifted curve displayed, Droops limply o'er the shoulder-blade, As needing some chirurgeon's aid:
The wrist is wrenched of JONES and BROWN, Those ornaments of London Town; Their listless fingers dribble down:
BROWN reaches to the knuckle-bones Of thus-excruciated JONES; BROWN's hand the same affliction owns.
At length his finger-tips have pressed The fingers of his JONES distressed: Both curvatures then sink to rest.
A sort of anguish lisped proceeds Prom either's mouth, but neither heeds The other's half-heroic deeds.
Exhausted, neither much can say; Complacent, each pursues his way; And JONES and BBOWN have lived to-day.
For both have sought by strenuous strain To demonstrate, in face of pain, That friends they were, and friends remain.
Ah, wonderful! Can Poets deem Self-sacrifice a fading dream? Are salutations what they seem?
Is BROWN some Altruist in disguise, And JONES an Ibsenite likewise, That thus they flop and agonise?--
Or are the pair affected fools, Who catch by rote the silly rules Of third-rate fashionable schools?
They commanded her to rise early. She knew that the day's doings would be a terrible ordeal, but she came of a bold and sturdy race, and felt herself equal to any emergency. And so as the morning broke--as daylight crept through the foggy air--she prepared for the sacrifice. Yes, sacrifice; for was it not a sacrifice to barter away youth, pride, nay, life itself! And I had a hand in the matter! Ah, me--but away with vain regret!