Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891

Excerpt

CANCEL, OR RECALL.

The World last week sounded a note about the compulsory retirement, by reason of age, from one of the large Revenue Departments, of a gentleman who has the great honour to be the son of "the most distinguished Irishman of this century." If this sentence has really been passed authoritatively, which Mr. Punch takes leave to doubt, then said "Authority" will do well to recall it in favour of the son of the Liberator, which his name is also "DAN." And, to give the well-known lines so often quoted,—

When DAN'L saw the writing on the wall,

At first he couldn't make it out at all."

And the sooner the official writing on the wall—if it exists—be obliterated, the better for the public service, as, when the public, like the Captain in the ballad of "Billy Taylor," "Comes for to hear on't," the said British Public will "werry much applaud what has been done" in suppressing, not issuing, reconsidering, or revoking the order. So says "Mr. P.," and the "B.P." will agree with him.

THE ANCIENT MILLINER.

(His Reminiscences of the Recent Gale.)

PART I.

IT was the Ancient Milliner

Stood by his open door;

The tale he told was something like

A tale I'd heard before.

* * * *

I called forthwith a Hansom, and

"Now, Cabman, drive!" I cried;

"For I must get this bandbox home

Before the eventide.

Raining Cats and Dogs

"The bride a-pacing up the aisle

Mad as a dog would be,

Without this sweet confection of

Silk and passementerie."

Westward the good cab flew. The horse

Was kick-some, wild, and gay;

He tossed his head from side to side

In an offensive way.

He tossed his head, he shook his mane,

And he was big and black;

He wore a little mackintosh

Upon his monstrous back.

I mused upon that mackintosh,

All mournfully mused I;

It was too small a thing to keep

So large a beastie dry.

And on we went up Oxford Street

With a short, uneasy motion;

What made the beast go sideways I

Have not the faintest notion

But we ran into an omnibus

With a short, uneasy motion.

All in a hot, improper way.

The rude 'bus-driver said,

That them what couldn't drive a horse

Should try a moke instead.

Never a word my cabman spoke—

No audible reply—

But, oh, a thousand scathing things

He thought; and so did I.

"What ails thee, Ancient Milliner?

What means thy ashen hue?

Why look'st thou so?"—I murmured, "Blow!"

And at my word it blew.

PART II.

The storm-blast came down Edgware Road,

Shrieking in furious glee,

It struck the cab, and both its doors

Leaped open, flying free.

I shut those doors, and kept them close

With all my might and main;

The storm-blast snatched them from my hands,

And forced them back again,

It blew the cabman from his perch

Towards the hornéd moon;

I saw him dimly overhead

Sail like a bad balloon.

It blew the bandbox far away

Across the angry sea;

The English Channel's scattered with

Silk and passementerie.

The silly horse within the shaft

One moment did remain;

And then the harness snapped, and he

Went flying through the rain;

And fell, a four-legged meteor,

Upon the coast of Spain....