A

ARMY HEAD-QUARTERS

Old is the song that I sing

Old as my unpaid bills

Old as the chicken that kitmutgars bring
Men at dak-bungalows-old as the Hills.

HASUERUS JENKINS of the 'Operatic Own,'
Was dowered with a tenor voice of super-
Santley tone.

His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer;
He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh! he had an ear.

He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day,
He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way,
His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders,
But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head upon his shoulders.

He took two months at Simla when the year was at the spring,

And underneath the deodars eternally did sing.
He warbled like a bul-bul, but particularly at
Cornelia Agrippina who was musical and fat.

She controlled a humble husband, who, in turn, controlled a Dept.

Where Cornelia Agrippina's human singing-birds were

kept

From April to October on a plump retaining-fee, Supplied, of course, per mensem by the Indian Treasury.

Cornelia used to sing with him, and Jenkins used to play;

He praised unblushingly her notes, for he was false as they;

So when the winds of April turned the budding roses brown,

Cornelia told her husband:-'Tom, you mustn't send him down.'

They haled him from his regiment which didn't much regret him;

They found for him an office-stool, and on that stool they set him.

To play with maps and catalogues three idle hours a day, And draw his plump retaining-fee-which means his double pay.

Now, ever after dinner, when the coffee-cups are brought,
Ahasuerus waileth o'er the grand pianoforte;
And, thanks to fair Cornelia, his fame hath waxen great,
And Ahasuerus Jenkins is a power in the State.

STUDY OF AN ELEVATION, IN INDIAN INK

This ditty is a string of lies.

But-how the deuce did Gubbins rise?

OTIPHAR GUBBINS, C. E.,

Stands at the top of the tree;

And I muse in my bed on the reasons that led
To the hoisting of Potiphar G.

Potiphar Gubbins, C. E.,

Is seven years junior to Me;

Each bridge that he makes either buckles or breaks,
And his work is as rough as he.

Potiphar Gubbins, C. E.,

Is coarse as a chimpanzee;

And I can't understand why you gave him your hand, Lovely Mehitabel Lee.

Potiphar Gubbins, C. E.,

Is dear to the Powers that Be;

For They bow and They smile in an affable style,
Which is seldom accorded to Me.

Potiphar Gubbins, C. E.,

Is certain as certain can be

Of a highly paid post which is claimed by a host
Of seniors-including Me.

Careless and lazy is he,

Greatly inferior to Me.

What is the spell that you manage so well, 'Commonplace Potiphar G.?

Lovely Mehitabel Lee,

Let me inquire of thee,

Should I have riz to what Potiphar is
Hadst thou been mated to Me?

DELILAH

We have another Viceroy now, those days are dead and

done

Of Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne.

D

ELILAH ABERYSWITH was a lady-not too young

With a perfect taste in dresses and a badlybitted tongue,

With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise,
And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days.

By reason of her marriage to a gentleman in power,
Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the hour;
And many little secrets, of a half-official kind,
Were whispered to Delilah and she bore them all in mind.

She patronised extensively a man, Ulysses Gunne,
Whose mode of earning money was a low and shameful one.
He wrote for divers papers which, as everybody knows,
Is worse than serving in a shop or scaring off the crows.
He praised her 'queenly beauty' first; and, later on, he
hinted

At the 'vastness of her intellect' with compliment unstinted.

He went with her a-riding, and his love for her was such That he lent her all his horses and-she galled them very

much.