Our Holidays King Henry IV, Part I. ST. SATURDAY BY HENRY JOHNSTONEOh, Friday night's the queen of nights, because it ushers inThe Feast of good St. Saturday, when studying is a sin,When studying is a sin, boys, and we may go to playNot only in the afternoon, but all the livelong day. St. Saturday—so legends say—lived in the ages whenThe use of leisure still was known and current among... more...

The story which I have to tell is more than strange. It is so terrible, so incredible, so entirely contrary to all that any ordinary reader of the London Journal or the "penny dreadfuls" has ever heard of, that even now I have some doubt in telling it. I happen, however, to know it is true, and so does my husband. My husband will come in presently with his narrative. There! that ought to make... more...

AUGUST 6, 1887. Dear Mr. Punch, Now that your own particular theatrical adviser and follower, Mr. Nibbs, has left London for a trip abroad, I venture to address you on matters dramatic. I am the more desirous of so doing because, although the Season is nearly over, two very important additions have been made to the London playhouse programme—two additions that have hitherto escaped your eagle glance.... more...

It was on a sultry August evening in the memorable year 1887 that a stranger, whose anxious gaze, now and again fixed on the entrance, denoted the fact that he was awaiting the arrival of one of the Members, crossed and re-crossed the pavement of the Hall of the Reform Club with a step that indicated a high condition of nervous trepidation. To the casual observer he might have passed for a solicitor in... more...

PREFACE These selections from Old English poetry have been translated to meet the needs of that ever-increasing body of students who cannot read the poems in their original form, but who wish nevertheless to enjoy to some extent the heritage of verse which our early English ancestors have left for us. Especially in the rapid survey of English literature given in most of our colleges, a collection of... more...

COME, LASSES AND LADS. Come, lasses and lads,                 get leave of your dads,  And away to the Maypole hie,For ev'ry fair has a sweetheart there,  And the fiddler's standing by; For Willy shall dance with Jane,  And Johnny has got his Joan,To trip it, trip it, trip it, trip it,  Trip it up and down! "You're out," says Dick; "not I," says... more...

I. "Lord, but English people are funny!" This was the perplexed mental ejaculation that young Lieutenant Skipworth Cary, of Virginia, found his thoughts constantly reiterating during his stay in Devonshire. Had he been, he wondered, a confiding fool, to accept so trustingly Chev Sherwood's suggestion that he spend a part of his leave, at least, at Bishopsthorpe, where Chev's people... more...

EACH IN HIS GENERATION BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT From Scribner's Magazine Every afternoon at four o'clock, except when the weather was very bad—autumn, winter, and spring—old Mr. Henry McCain drove up to the small, discreet, polished front door, in the small, discreet, fashionable street in which lived fairly old Mrs. Thomas Denby; got out, went up the white marble steps, rang the bell,... more...

'PLEASE, sir,' he said, 'could you tell me the right time?' 'Twenty minutes to eight,' I replied, looking at my watch. 'Oh,' he remarked. Then added for my information after a pause: 'I haven't got to be in till half-past eight.' After that we fell back into our former silence, and sat watching the murky twilight, he at his end of the park seat, I... more...

ACT. II.—Scene—Same as in Act I.; viz., the Morning-room at Natterjack Hall. Evening of same day. Enter Blethers. Blethers. Another of Sir Poshbury's birthdays almost gone—and my secret still untold! (Dodders.) I can't keep it up much longer ... Ha, here comes his Lordship—he does look mortal bad, that he do! Miss Verbena ain't treated him too well, from all I can hear, poor... more...