We're much obliged to 'im, I'm sure, (Though potry ain't my fav'rit reading,) He's civil, kind and not cock-sure; Good sense goes sometimes with good-breeding. So Tommy's best respects to _'im_, At Aldershot we'd like to treat 'im. Though if he bobs in Evelyn's swim, He _might_ not know us _when_ we meet 'im!
But, Bill, if all this barney's _true_ Consarnin' "Our Poor Little Army," It must be nuts to Pollyvoo! _He_ needn't feel a mite alarmy. _Whose_ fault is it we cost a lot, And, if war comes, _must_ fail, or fly it? Well facts is facts, and bounce is rot; But, blarm it, BILL,--_I'd like to try it!_
[Footnote 1: Mr. Kipling dedicates his "Barrack-Room Ballads" to "TOMMY ATKINS" in these lines:--
I have made for you a song, An' it may be right or wrong, But only you can tell me if it's true; I've tried for to explain. Both your pleasure and your pain, And, THOMAS, here's my best respects to you!
Oh, there'll surely come a day When they'll grant you all your pay And treat you as a Christian ought to do; So, until that day comes round, Heaven keep you safe and sound, And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!]
_Artist_ (_to Customer, who has come to buy on behalf of a large Furnishing Firm in Tottenham Court Road_). "HOW WOULD THIS SUIT YOU? 'SUMMER'!"
_Customer._ "H'M--'SUMMER.' WELL, SIR, THE FACT IS WE FIND THERE'S VERY LITTLE DEMAND FOR _GREEN_ GOODS JUST NOW. IF YOU HAD A LINE OF _AUTUMN TINTS_ NOW--THAT'S THE ARTICLE WE FIND MOST SALE FOR AMONG OUR CUSTOMERS!"]
Oh, ain't the Copperashun jest a cummin out in the Hi Art line! Why, dreckly as they let it be nown as they was a willin to make room in their bewtifool Galery for any of the finest picters in the hole country as peepel was wantin to send there, jest to let the world no as they'd got 'em, and that they wos considered good enuff by the LORD MARE and the Sherriffs and all the hole Court of Haldermen, than they came a poring in in such kwantities, that pore Mr. WELSH, the Souperintendant, was obligated to arsk all the hole Court of common Counselmen, what on airth he was to do with 'em, and they told him to hinsult the Libery Committee on the matter, and they, like the lerned gents as they is, told him to take down sum of the werry biggest and the most strikingest as they'd got of their hone Picters and ang 'em up in the Gildhall Westybool, as they calls it, coz it's in the East, I spose, and so make room for a lot of the littel uns as had been sent to 'em, coz they was painted by "Old Marsters," tho' who "Old Marsters" was, I, for one, never could make out, xcep that he must have well deserved his Nickname, considering the number of picters as he must ha' painted. And now cums won of the werry cleverest dodges as even a Welsh Souperintendant of Gildhall picturs coud posserbly have thort on. Why what does he do? but he has taken down out of the Gallery, won of the werry biggest, and one of the werry grandest, Picters of moddern times, and has hung it up in the Westybool aforesaid, to take the whole shine out of all the little uns as so many hemnent swells had been ony too glad to send to Gildhall--"the paytron of the Harts," as I herd a hemnent Halderman call it,--to give 'em the reel stamp as fust rate.