[Illustration: PLEASURES OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.]
[Illustration: ART IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
ENID (_with catalogue_). Aren’t they splendid?
EILEEN (_using picture as mirror_). Yes, I _must_ say I like these dark Rembrandts.]
[Illustration: OUTSIDE THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
“You were a silly ass to talk of Botticelli in that way just now. Why, it’s not a wine, it’s a cheese!”]
[Illustration: THE CHARMING FASHION OF LONG SKIRTS (1862).
Honestly, now--which of the two ought to apologize to the other?]
POET. What do you think of this little poem of mine, “She Would Not Smile.”
EDITOR. I think if you had read the poem to her she would have smiled.
PROFESSOR (_turning angrily to class_). This is intolerable! Every time I speak an imbecile talks.
BOARDER (_to landlady_). Did you hear me come home last night?
LANDLADY. Did I? I heard you coming home for several hours!
PROVINCIAL (_at the Leeds Exhibition_). I’ve heeard as the paint on some o’ these yere “picters” comes to a matter o’ fi’ pounds sometimes, let alone the man’s time a layin’ of it on, yer know!!!]
Mr. B. A. Boone having given Smudger, R.H.A., leave to exhibit his portrait, is intensely delighted to find there is a slight mistake in the catalogue, and that the description really belonging to No. 82--“B. A. Boone, Esq., F.Z.S., etc.”--has been transferred to No. 28.]
EISENSTEIN. Hello, old man, what makes you look so worried?
ROSENSTEIN. The doctor ordered me to take a bath!
_Eisenstein._ Cheer up, old man! You can try this new dry cleaning process.
“See what a beautiful set of teeth the baroness has!”
MISS N. V. “Yes, it looks as if she had swallowed a piano, all but the keyboard.”
CHARMING YOUNG WOMAN (_to artist_). But a hundred pounds seems to me too much for my portrait. I find it so easy to paint myself!
“You say your manager threw an inkstand at you?”
“Yes, he did, but I must say for him that he threw the blotting pad after it.”
Or, what it would have come to, if some people had had their way.]
[Illustration: PICTURES OF THE ENGLISH, PAINTED BY THE FRENCH.
MILORD. Godam! Rosbif! I shall sell my wife at Smithfield. Dam!]
ETHEL. Good-morning, Mr. Jones. You don’t seem to mind the heat!
JONES (_surlily_). I should say not. All my friends have given me the cold shoulder.