"Of course you were, Sir. I knew how it would be. I wanted you fifty yards higher up, but Mr. CHALMERS, he would have you here. Lor, I've never known birds break here. Now then, you boys, stop that chattering, or I sends you all home. Seem to think they're out here to enjoy theirselves, instead of doing as I tells 'em. Come, rattle your sticks!"
Thus are the little beaters and the stops admonished.
_Which young Mr. D. Brown went in to floor, but which floored him._
_Question._ What is the meaning of "to deodorise." Give the derivation.
_Answer._ "To deodorise" is to gild the statue of a heathen deity. Literally "to gild a god." This compound verb is derived from "_Deus_," dative "_Deo_," and the Greek verb "[Greek: dôrixô], _i.e._ to gild."
_Q._ What is a "Manicure"? Give its derivation.
_A._ It is another term for a Mad Doctor. Its derivation is obvious--"Maniac Cure." The last syllable of the first word being omitted for the sake of convenience in pronunciation.
(_Mr. Punch's Dreadful New Year's Dream after a Surfeit of Mince Pies and "Times" Correspondence._)]
I had a Dream, which was not all a Dream. (By Somnus and old Nox I fear 'twas _not_!) Common-sense was extinguished, and Good Taste Did wonder darkling on the verge of doom. I saw a Monster, a malign, marine, Mysterious, many-whorled, mug-lumbering Bogey, Stretched (like Miltonian angels on the marl) In league-long loops upon the billowy brine. Beshrew thee, old familiar ocean Bogey, Thou spectral spook of many Silly Seasons, Beshrew thee, and avaunt! Which being put In post-Shakspearian vernacular, means Confound, you, and Get out!!! The monstrous worm Wriggling its corkscrew periwinkly twists Of trunk and tail alternate, winked huge goggles Derisively and gurgled. "_Me_ get out, The Science-vouched, and Literature-upheld, And Reason-rehabilitated butt Of many years of misdirected mockery? You ask omniscient HUXLEY, cocksure oracle On all from protoplasm to Home Rule, From Scripture to Sea Serpents; go consult Belligerent, brave, beloved BILLY RUSSELL! Verisimilitude incarnate, I Scorn your vain sceptic mirth! Besides, behold The portent riding me, as Thetis rode The lolloping, wolloping sea-horse of old! Is it less likely that _I_ should remain Than _she_ return?" Then, horror-thrilled, I gazed At her, the Abominable, the Ogreish Thing; The soul-revolting, sense-degrading She, Who swayed and sickened, scourged and scarified The unwilling slaves of fashion and discomfort A quarter of a century since! She sat, A spectral, scraggy, beet-nosed, ankle-less, Obtrusive-panted, splay-foot, slattern-shape, Of grim Medusa-faced Immodesty, Caged cumbrously in a stiff, swaying, swollen, Shin-scarifying, hose-revealing frame Of wide-meshed metal, like a monster mousetrap-- Hideous, indecent, awkward! Oh, I knew her-- This loathly _revenant_, revisiting The glimpses of the moon. She shamed my sight, And blocked my way, and marred my young men's art, Twenty years syne and more. 'Twas CRINOLINA, The long-abiding, happily banished horror We hoped to see no more. _Shall_ she return To vex our souls, unsex our wives and daughters, And spoil our pictures as she did of old? Forbid it, womanhood and modesty! And if _they_ won't, let manhood and sound sense Arise in wrath and warn the horror off, Ere she effect a lodgment on the limbs Of pretty girls, or clothe our matron's shapes With shame as with a garment. "Get thee gone!" Cries _Punch_, and shakes his gingham in her face. "The Silly Season's Nemesis we may stand, But thou, the loathlier Bogey? _Garn away!_ (As 'LIZA said to amorous 'ARRY 'AWKINS) Avaunt, skedaddle, slope, absquatulate, Go, gruesome ghoul--go quickly--and for ever!!!"