Mr. Punch's After-Dinner Stories - LightNovelsOnl.com
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_Host._ "Can you say, 'The scenery's truly rural 'bout here?'"
_Guest._ "Sc-scenery tooralooral."
_Host._ "All right, come along!"]
[Ill.u.s.tration: HE KNEW THE CUISINE.--_Hungry Diner_ (_scanning the menu_). "Look here, waiter, I'm starving. I think I'll have a little of everything!"
_Waiter._ "Yessir. (_Bawls off._) 'Ash one!"]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SONGS AND THEIR SINGERS]
AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES
"When the wine is in, the wit is out;"
Only to dolts the adage reaches.
No wise man could for a moment doubt The value of after-dinner speeches.
_Punch_ can remember the time when Peel, Whose wisdom still the country teaches, After steak and port, his nine o'clock meal, Made the best of after-dinner speeches.
When the Ministers come to the Mansion House, (The King of London their presence beseeches,) No guest who has any touch of _nous_ Will be weary of after-dinner speeches.
When the Royal Academy blooms in May, With its pretty girls and their cheeks like peaches Who won't, on the opening Sat.u.r.day, Listen to after-dinner speeches?
When there's ought that's generous to be done, A greeting to pay that no soul impeaches, A dinner's the best thing under the sun, And its gold coin the after-dinner speeches.
And as to the House, which often suffers From talk that to dreariest plat.i.tude reaches, It does not often allow its duffers To make long after-dinner speeches.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENE--CHOP-HOUSE
_Enter Street Boy, and, with suppressed ecstasy._ "Oh, please, there's your cat and kittens having such a game with the things in the winder!"]
AT THE CRIC-CRAC RESTAURANT
_Customer_ (_looking at bill_). Here, waiter, there's surely some mistake in this total.
_Waiter_ (_politely_). Zehn thousand pardons, sir! Mit my usual carelessness I have added in ze date and vorgot to charge you for ze b.u.t.ter.
AN OVERSIGHT!
_Swell._ Waiter! This--ah--chop's vewy dwy!
_Waiter._ 'Ndeed, sir? Perhaps if you were to order something to drink with it, sir----
[Ill.u.s.tration: A REBUKE
_Host._ "Fish is very expensive, just now, I can tell you. This salmon cost me two and sixpence a pound!"
_Guest_ (_no business of his_). "Ah, it's very good, I think I'll take another eighteen penn'orth!"]
[Ill.u.s.tration: CAUTION
_The Major._ "Don't you like liqueurs, Mrs. Jinks?"
_Mrs. Jinks._ "Yes; but they make one so _unreserved_!"]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BORN ORATOR (IN THE EAST)
