Volume 100 — AT THE END OF THE YEAR.

I thought your lines a great success, (You always did write rather neatly) Although I must at once confess I can't agree with you completely. Of course I recollect quite well How long we sat and smoked together, And how our conversation fell (As fall it will) upon the weather. Our prospects then seemed bright and fair, (Our language certainly got stronger) We built our castles in the air, And by degrees our drinks grew longer. Yes—in the game of law BEN wins, And many guineas in he's picking, But have you heard his wife has twins, And both of them alive and kicking? And pompous JOE, now JOE, M.P., Is doubtless pleased at growing raucous Through speaking, since he's proud to be The Member for a Tory Caucus. Yet I'm afraid for his poor brain, That such success will surely turn it, For every speech means so much strain, Since off by heart he has to learn it! And mazy JACK, whose chance in life, We all of us considered shady, Has married money (and a wife); But tell me—do you know the lady? DICK's dinners, too, I'm quite aware, Are noted—yet he's far from steady, Whilst TOM's fine house in Belgrave Square Is mortgaged, so they say, already. Life, after all, is surely more Than guineas, Belgrave Square, or dinners. Life is a race—but yet, before You curse your luck, are these the winners? And so, old friend, content I jog Along, amidst life's hurry-skurry, And smoke my bird's-eye, sip my grog, Without a care or thought to worry.