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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch at the Seaside, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mr. Punch at the Seaside
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: J. A. Hammerton
+
+Illustrator: Various
+
+Release Date: August 23, 2011 [EBook #37166]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. PUNCH AT THE SEASIDE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Neville Allen, Chris Curnow and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    MR. PUNCH AT THE SEASIDE
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR
+
+    Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON
+
+ Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in
+ itself, the cream of national humour, contributed by the masters of
+ comic draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to "Punch",
+ from its beginning in 1841 to the present day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "BY THE SILVER SEA"
+
+This is _not_ Jones's dog.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  MR. PUNCH AT THE SEASIDE
+
+  AS PICTURED BY
+
+CHARLES KEENE, JOHN LEECH, GEORGE DU MAURIER, PHIL MAY, L. RAVEN-HILL,
+J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE, GORDON BROWNE, E. T. REED, AND OTHERS....
+
+_WITH 200 ILLUSTRATIONS_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PROPRIETORS OF "PUNCH"
+
+THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR
+
+_Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo. 192 pages
+fully illustrated_
+
+LIFE IN LONDON
+
+COUNTRY LIFE
+
+IN THE HIGHLANDS
+
+SCOTTISH HUMOUR
+
+IRISH HUMOUR
+
+COCKNEY HUMOUR
+
+IN SOCIETY
+
+AFTER DINNER STORIES
+
+IN BOHEMIA
+
+AT THE PLAY
+
+MR. PUNCH AT HOME
+
+ON THE CONTINONG
+
+RAILWAY BOOK
+
+AT THE SEASIDE
+
+MR. PUNCH AFLOAT
+
+IN THE HUNTING FIELD
+
+MR. PUNCH ON TOUR
+
+WITH ROD AND GUN
+
+MR. PUNCH AWHEEL
+
+BOOK OF SPORTS
+
+GOLF STORIES
+
+IN WIG AND GOWN
+
+ON THE WARPATH
+
+BOOK OF LOVE
+
+WITH THE CHILDREN
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EDITOR'S NOTE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+One of the leading characteristics of the nineteenth century was the
+tremendous change effected in the social life of Great Britain by the
+development of cheap railway travel. The annual holiday at the seaside
+speedily became as inevitable a part of the year's progress as the
+milkman's morning call is of the day's routine. What at first had been a
+rare and memorable event in a life-time developed into a habit, to
+which, with our British love for conventions, all of us conform.
+
+Whether or not our French critics are justified in saying that we
+Britishers take our pleasures sadly, these pages from the seaside
+chronicles of Mr. Punch will bear witness, and while at times they may
+seem to support the case of our critics, at others the evidence is
+eloquent against them. This at least is certain, that whatever the
+temperament of the British as displayed during the holiday season at our
+popular resorts, the point of view of our national jester, Mr. Punch, is
+unfailingly humorous, and such sadness as some of our countrymen may
+bring to their pleasures is but food for the mirth of merry Mr. Punch,
+who, we are persuaded, stands for the sum total of John Bull's good
+humour in his outlook on the life of his countrymen.
+
+As the real abstract and brief chronicler of our time, Mr. Punch has
+mirrored in little the social history of the last sixty-five years, and
+apart from the genuine entertainment which this book presents, it is
+scarcely less instructive as a pictorial history of British manners
+during this period. One may here follow in the vivid sketches of the
+master-draughtsmen of the age the ceaseless and bewildering changes of
+fashion--the passing of the crinoline, the coming and going of the
+bustle, the chignon, and similar vanities, and the evolution of the
+present-day styles of dress both of men and women.
+
+It is also curious to notice how little seaside customs, amusements,
+troubles and delights, have varied in the last half-century. Landladies
+are at the end what they were at the beginning; the same old type of
+bathing-machine is still in use; our forefathers and their womenfolk in
+the days when Mr. Punch was young behaved themselves by "the silver sea"
+just as their children's children do to-day. Nothing has changed, except
+that the most select of seaside places is no longer so select as it was
+in the pre-railway days, and that the wealthier classes, preferring the
+attractions of Continental resorts, are less in evidence at our own
+watering-places.
+
+The motto of this little work, as of all those in the series to which it
+belongs, is "Our true intent is all for your delight", but if the book
+carry with it some measure of instruction, we trust that may not be the
+less to its credit.
+
+
+
+
+MR. PUNCH AT THE SEASIDE
+
+_Mrs. Dorset_ (_of "Dorset's Sugar and Butter Stores", Mile End Road_).
+"Why on earth can't we go to a more _dressy_ place than this, 'Enery?
+I'm sick of this dreary 'ole, year after year. It's nothing but sand and
+water, sand and water!"
+
+_Mr. Dorset._ "If it wasn't for sand and water, you wouldn't get no
+'olerday."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A FASHIONABLE WATERING PLACE]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SEASIDE MEM.--The Society recently started to abolish Tied-houses will
+not include Bathing Machines within the scope of its operations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"WHERE'S RAMSGATE?"
+
+[Illustration: BIDDY-FORD]
+
+    [_Mr. Justice Hawkins._ Where is Ramsgate?
+
+    _Mr. Dickens._ It is in Thanet, your lordship.
+                            _Report of Twyman v. Bligh._]
+
+    "Where's Ramsgate?" Justice Hawkins cried.
+      "Where on our earthly planet?"
+    The learned Dickens straight replied,
+      "'Tis in the Isle of Thanet.
+
+    "Ramsgate is where the purest air
+      Will make your head or leg well,
+    Will jaded appetite repair,
+      With the shrimp cure of Pegwell.
+
+    "Where's Ramsgate? It is near the place
+      Where Julius Caesar waded,
+    And nearer still to where his Grace
+      Augustine come one day did.
+
+    "All barristers should Ramsgate know:
+      I speak of it with pleasure",
+    Quoth Dickens. "There I often go
+      When wanting a refresher.
+
+    "Where's Ramsgate? Where I've often seen.
+      Both S-mb-rne and Du M-r-_er_,
+    When I have gone by 3.15
+      Granville Express, Victori_er_.
+
+    "With Thanet Harriers, when you are
+      Well mounted on a pony,
+    You'll say, for health who'd go so far
+      As Cannes, Nice, or Mentone?
+
+    "With Poland, of the Treasury,
+      Recorder eke of Dover,
+    I oft go down for pleasurey.
+      Alack! 'tis too soon over!
+
+    "O'er Thanet's Isle where'er you trudge,
+      My Lud, you'll find no land which----"
+    "Dickens take Ramsgate!" quote the Judge.
+      "Luncheon! I'm off to Sandwich!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A JUDGE BY APPEARANCE
+
+_Bathing Guide._ "Bless 'is 'art! I know'd he'd take to it kindly--by
+the werry looks on 'im!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE WONDERS OF THE SEA-SHORE
+
+     _Contributed by_ "GLAUCUS", _who is staying at a quiet
+     watering-place, five miles from anywhere, and three miles from a
+     Railway Station_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    _Monday_(?) _after breakfast, lying on the beach._
+
+Wonder if it is Monday, or Tuesday?
+
+Wonder what time it is?
+
+Wonder if it will be a fine day?
+
+Wonder what I shall do if it is? On second thoughts, wonder what I shall
+do if it isn't?
+
+Wonder if there are any letters?
+
+Wonder who that is in a white petticoat with her hair down?
+
+Wonder if she came yesterday or the day before?
+
+Wonder if she's pretty?
+
+Wonder what I've been thinking about the last ten minutes?
+
+Wonder how the boatmen here make a livelihood by lying all day at full
+length on the beach?
+
+Wonder why every one who sits on the shore throws pebbles into the sea?
+
+Wonder what there is for dinner?
+
+Wonder what I shall do all the afternoon?
+
+       * * * * *
+
+    _Same day, after lunch, lying on the beach._
+
+Wonder who in the house beside myself is partial to my dry sherry?
+
+Wonder what there is for dinner?
+
+Wonder what's in the paper to-day?
+
+Wonder if it's hot in London? Should say it was.
+
+Wonder how I ever could live in London?
+
+Wonder if there's any news from America?
+
+Wonder what tooral looral means in a chorus?
+
+Children playing near me, pretty, very?
+
+Wonder if that little boy intended to hit me on the nose with a stone?
+
+Wonder if he's going to do it again? Hope not.
+
+Wonder if I should like to be a shrimp?
+
+       * * * * *
+
+    _Same day, after an early dinner, lying on the beach._
+
+Wonder why I can never get any fish?
+
+Wonder why my landlady introduces cinders into the gravy?
+
+Wonder more than ever who there is at my lodgings so partial to my dry
+sherry?
+
+Wonder if that's the coast of France in the distance?
+
+Feel inclined for a quiet conversation with my fellow-man.
+
+[Illustration: EXMOUTH]
+
+A boatman approaches. I wonder (to the boatman) if it will be a fine day
+tomorrow? He wonders too? We both wonder together?
+
+Wonder (again to the boatman) if the rail will make much difference to
+the place? He shakes his head and says "Ah! he wonders!" and leaves me.
+
+Wonder what age I was last birthday?
+
+Wonder if police inspectors are as a rule fond of bathing?
+
+Wonder what gave me that idea?
+
+Wonder what I shall do all this evening?
+
+[Illustration: A HIGH SEA OVER THE BAR]
+
+    _Same day, after supper, Moonlight, lying on the beach._
+
+Wonder if there ever was such a creature as a mermaid?
+
+Wonder several times more than ever who it is that's so fond of my dry
+sherry?
+
+Wonder if the Pope can swim?
+
+Wonder what made me think of that?
+
+Wonder if I should like to go up in a balloon?
+
+Wonder what Speke and Grant had for dinner to-day?
+
+Wonder if the Zoological Gardens are open at sunrise?
+
+Wonder what I shall do to-morrow?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FRUIT TO BE AVOIDED BY BATHERS.--Currants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SHOPPING
+
+_Lady_ (_at Seaside "Emporium"_). "How much are those--ah--improvers?"
+
+_Shopman._ "Improv--hem!--They're not, ma'am"--(_confused_)--"not--not
+the article you require, ma'am. They're fencing-masks, ma'am!"
+
+    [_Tableau!_
+
+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: DEA EX MACHINA! (_A Reminiscence_)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A LARGE BUMP OF CAUTION
+
+_Flora._ "Oh, let us sit here, aunt, the breeze is so delightful."
+
+_Aunt._ "Yes--it's very nice, I dare say; but I won't come any nearer to
+the cliff, for I am always afraid of _slipping through those
+railings_!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A BOAT FOR AN HOUR
+
+_Stout Gentleman._ "What! is that the only boat you have in?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A SEASIDE REVERIE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    I think, as I sit at my ease on the shingle,
+      And list to the musical voice of the Sea,
+    How gaily my Landlady always will mingle
+      From my little caddy her matutine tea.
+    And vainly the bitter remembrance I banish
+      Of mutton just eaten, my heart is full sore,
+    To think after one cut it's certain to vanish,
+      And never be seen on my board any more.
+
+    Some small store of spirit to moisten my throttle
+      I keep, and indulge in it once in a way;
+    But, bless you, it seems to fly out of the bottle
+      And swiftly decrease, though untouched all the day.
+    My sugar and sardines, my bread and my butter,
+      Are eaten, and vainly I fret and I frown;
+    My Landlady, just like an AEsthete's too utter
+      A fraud, and I vow that I'll go back to Town.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE MORNING PAPERS
+
+Sketch from our window, 10 A.M., at Sludgeborough Ness.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE NURSEMAID'S FRIEND
+
+Science has given us the baby-jumper, by which we are enabled to carry
+out the common exclamation of "Hang those noisy children" without an act
+of infanticide, by suspending our youngsters in the air; and perhaps
+allowing them to have their full swing, without getting into mischief;
+but the apparatus for the nursery will not be complete until we have
+something in the shape of coops for our pretty little chickens, when
+they are "out with nurse", and she happens to have something better--or
+worse--to do than to look after them.
+
+How often, in a most interesting part of a novel, or in the midst of a
+love passage of real life, in which the nurse is herself the heroine,
+how often, alas! is she not liable to be disturbed by the howl of a
+brat, with a cow's horn in his eye, a dog's teeth in his heels, or in
+some other awkward dilemma, which could not have arisen had the domestic
+Child-coop been an article of common use in the Metropolitan parks, or
+on the sands at the seaside?
+
+[Illustration: YARMOUTH]
+
+There is something very beautiful in the comparison of helpless infancy
+to a brood of young chickens, with its attendant imagery of "mother's
+wing", and all that sort of thing, but the allegory would be rendered
+much more complete by the application of the hencoop to domestic
+purposes. We intend buying one for our own stud of _piccoli_--which
+means little pickles--and we hope to see all heads of families taking it
+into their heads to follow our example.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MIDSUMMER MADNESS.--Going to the seaside in search of quiet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LOCAL INTELLIGENCE
+
+"D'year as 'ow old Bob Osborne 'ave give up shrimpin' an took ter
+winklin'?"
+
+"Well, I'm blest!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE INGRATITUDE OF SOME SERVANTS
+
+You give them a change by taking them to the seaside--all they have to
+do is to look after the children--and yet they don't seem to appreciate
+it.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A NATIVE HOISTER]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: GOING DOWN TO A WATERING PLACE]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ON THE SPOT
+
+Shall we like Pierpoint, to which favourite and healthy seaside resort
+we finally resolved to come, after a period of much indecision and
+uncertainty, and where we arrived, in heavy rain, in two cabs, with
+thirteen packages, on Saturday?
+
+Shall we be comfortable at 62, Convolution Street, dining-room floor,
+two guineas and a half a week, and all and perhaps rather more than the
+usual extras?
+
+Shall we like Mrs. Kittlespark?
+
+Shall we find Kate all that a Kate ought to be?
+
+Shall we lock everything up, or repose a noble confidence in Mrs.
+Kittlespark and Kate?
+
+Shall we get to know the people in the drawing-room?
+
+Shall we subscribe to the Pier, or pay each time we go on it?
+
+Shall we subscribe to that most accommodating Circulating Library,
+Pigram's, where we can exchange our books at pleasure, _but not oftener
+than once a day_?
+
+Shall we relax our minds with the newest novels, or give our intellects
+a bracing course of the best standard works?
+
+Shall we dine late or early?
+
+Shall we call on the Denbigh Flints, who, according to the _Pierpoint
+Pioneer_, are staying at 10, Ocean Crescent?
+
+Shall we carefully avoid the Wilkiesons, whom the same unerring guide
+reports at 33, Blue Lion Street?
+
+Shall we be satisfied with our first weekly bill?
+
+Shall we find in it any unexpected and novel extras, such as
+knife-cleaning, proportion of the water-rate, loan of latch-key, &c.?
+
+Shall we get our meat at Round's, who displays the Prince of Wales's
+Feathers over his shop door, and plumes himself on being "purveyor" to
+His Royal Highness; or at Cleaver's, who boasts of the patronage of the
+Hereditary Grand Duke of Seltersland?
+
+Shall we find everything dearer here than it is at home?
+
+Shall we be happy in our laundress?
+
+Shall we be photographed?
+
+Shall we, as Mrs. Kittlespark has a spare bed-room, invite our Cousin
+Amelia Staythorp, from whom we have expectations, and who is
+Constance Edith Amelia's Godmother, to come down and stay a week with
+us?
+
+Shall we be praiseworthily economical, and determine not to spend a
+single unnecessary sixpence; or shall we, as we _have_ come to
+Pierpoint, enjoy ourselves to the utmost, go in for all the amusements
+of the place--pier, public gardens, theatre, concerts, Oceanarium,
+bathing, boating, fishing, driving, riding, and rinking--make
+excursions, be ostentatiously liberal to the Town Band, and buy
+everything that is offered to us on the Beach?
+
+A month hence, shall we be glad or sorry to leave Pierpoint, and go back
+to Paddington?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: GOING TO BRIGHTON]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WHAT WE COULD BEAR A GOOD DEAL OF]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A VIEW OF COWES]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SCENE AT SANDBATH
+
+The Female Blondin Outdone! Grand Morning Performance on the Narrow
+Plank by the Darling ----]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A LITTLE FAMILY BREEZE
+
+_Mrs. T._ "What a wretch you must be, T.; why don't you take me off?
+Don't you see I'm overtook with the tide, and I shall be drownded!"
+
+_T._ "Well, then--will you promise not to kick up such a row when I stop
+out late of a Saturday?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+POSTSCRIPT TO A SEASIDE LETTER.--"The sea is as smooth, and clear, as a
+looking-glass. The oysters might see to shave in it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ALL IN THE DAY'S WORK
+
+"And look here! I want you to take my friend here and myself just far
+enough to be up to our chins, you know, and no further!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: BANGOR]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WHAT THE WILD WAVES ARE SAYING
+
+That the lodging-house keepers are on the look out for the weary
+Londoners and their boxes.
+
+That the sea breezes will attract all the world from the Metropolis to
+the coast.
+
+That Britons should prefer Ramsgate, Eastbourne, Scarborough, and the
+like, to Dieppe, Dinard, and Boulogne.
+
+That paterfamilias should remember, when paying the bill, that a two
+months' letting barely compensates for an empty house during the
+remainder of the year.
+
+That the shore is a place of recreation for all but the bathing-machine
+horse.
+
+That the circulating libraries are stocked with superfluous copies of
+unknown novels waiting to be read.
+
+That, finally, during the excursion season, 'Arry will have to be
+tolerated, if not exactly loved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: [_The "Lancet" advocates taking holidays in Midwinter
+instead of Midsummer._]
+
+View of the sands of Anywhere-on-Sea if the suggestion is adopted.
+
+Time--December or January.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mrs. Fydgetts_ (_screaming_). "My child! My child!"
+
+_Mr. Fydgetts._ "What's the use of making that noise? Can't you be
+quiet?"
+
+_Mrs. F._ "You're a brute, sir."
+
+_Mr. F._ "I wish I were; for then I should be able to swim."
+
+_Mrs. F._ "Mr. Fydgetts! Ain't you a-coming to help me?"
+
+_Mr. F._ "No! It serves you right for bringing me down to this stupid
+place."
+
+_Mrs. F._ "_I_, indeed. Why, I wanted to go to Brighton and you would
+come to Margate--you said it was cheaper."
+
+_Mr. F._ "It's false; I said no such thing."
+
+_Mrs. F._ "You did, you did!"
+
+_Mr. F._ "O, woman! woman! Where do you expect to go to?"
+
+_Mrs. F._ "To the bottom; unless you come and help me!"
+
+_Mr. F._ "Help yourself. I'm s-i-n-k-i-n-g"--
+
+_Mrs. F._ "My child! My child!"
+
+_Mr. F._ (_rising from the water_). "Be quiet, can't you! Woo-o-m--" (_the
+rest is inaudible, but the watery pair are saved just in time, and renew
+their dispute in the boat as soon as they are rescued from their
+perilous position_).]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mabel_ (_soliloquising_). "Dear me, this relaxing
+climate makes even one's parasol seem too heavy to hold!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOLIDAY HAUNTS
+
+_By Jingle Junior on the Jaunt_
+
+
+I.--GREAT YARMOUTH
+
+[Illustration: PUFFINS]
+
+Why Great?--where's Little Yarmouth?--or Mid-Sized Yarmouth?--give it
+up--don't know--hate people who ask conundrums--feel well cured directly
+you get here--good trademark for dried-fish sellers, "The Perfect
+Cure"--if you stay a fortnight, get quite kipperish--stay a month, talk
+kipperish! Principal attractions--Bloaters and Rows--first eat--second
+see--song, "_Speak gently of the Herring_"--"long shore" ones
+splendid--kippers delicious--song, "_What's a' the steer,
+Kipper?_"--song, "_Nobody's rows like our Rows_"--more they
+are--varied--picturesque--tumbledown--paradise for painters--very
+narrow--capital support for native Bloater going home after dinner--odd
+names--Ramp, Kitty Witches--Gallon Can, Conge! Fancy oneself quite the
+honest toiler of the sea--ought to go about in dried haddock suit--feel
+inclined to emulate _Mr. Peggotty_--run into quiet taverns--thump tables
+violently--say "gormed!" Whole neighbourhood recalls _Ham_ and _Little
+Em'ly_--_David, Steerforth, Mrs. Gummidge_--recall ham myself--if well
+broiled--lunch--pleasant promenades on piers--plenty of amusement in
+watching the bloateric commerce--fresh water fishing in adjacent Broads,
+if you like--if not, let it alone--broad as it's long! The Denes--not
+sardines--nor rural deans--good places for exercise--plenty of
+antiquities--old customs--quaint traditions! Picturesque ancient
+taverns--capital modern hotels--stopping in one of the latter--polite
+waiter just appeared--dinner served--soup'll get cold--mustn't
+wait--never insult good cook by being unpunctual--rather let Editor go
+short than hurt cook's feelings[1]--so no more at present--from Yours
+Truly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Footnote 1:] Don't like this sentiment. Is J. J. a Cook's
+Tourist?--ED.
+
+
+II.--LITTLEHAMPTON.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Emphatically the Sea on the strict Q T--no bustle at
+railway-station--train glides in noiselessly--passengers ooze
+away--porters good-tempered and easy-going--like suffragan Bishops in
+corduroys--bless boxes--read pastorals on portmanteaux--no one in a
+hurry--locomotive coos softly in an undertone--fly-drivers suggest
+possibility of your requiring their services in a whisper! Place
+full--no lodgings to be had--visitors manage to efface themselves--no
+one about--all having early dinners--or gone to bed--or pretending to be
+somewhere else--a one-sided game of hide and seek--everybody hiding,
+nobody seeking! Seems always afternoon--dreamy gleamy sunshine--a dense
+quietude that you might cut in slices--no braying brass-bands--no
+raucous niggers--no seaside harpies--Honfleur packet only excitement--no
+one goes to see it start--visitors don't like to be excited! Chief
+amusements, Common, Sands, and Pony-chaises--first, good to roll
+on--second, good to stroll on--first two, gratuitous and breezy--third,
+inexpensive and easy--might be driven out of your mind for
+three-and-six--notwithstanding this, everybody presumably sane. Capital
+place for children--cricket for boys--shrimping for girls--bare
+legs--picturesque dress--not much caught--salt water good for
+ankles--excellent bathing--rows of bathing-tents--admirable notion!
+Interesting excursions--Arundel Castle--Bramber--Bognor--Chichester
+--Petworth House! Good things to eat--Arundel mullet--Amberley trout
+--Tarring figs! Delightful air--omnipotent ozone--uninterrupted
+quiet--just the place to recover your balance, either mental or
+monetary--I wish to recover both--that's the reason I'm here--send
+cheque at once to complete cure.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2:] We have sent him the price of a third-class fare to town,
+with orders to return instantly: possibly this is hardly the sort of
+check that our friend "J. J." expected.--ED.
+
+[Illustration: RAMSGATE]
+
+
+III.--SCARBOROUGH.
+
+Long way from London--no matter--fast train--soon here--once here don't
+wish to leave--palatial hotels--every luxury--good _tables
+d'hote_--pleasant balls--lively society! Exhilarating air--good as
+champagne without "morning after"--up early--go to bed late--authorities
+provide something better than a broken-down pier, a circulating library,
+and a rickety bathing-machine--authorities disburse large sums for
+benefit of visitors--visitors spend lots of money in town--mutual
+satisfaction--place crowded--capital bands--excellent theatricals
+--varied entertainments--right way to do it! The Spa--first
+discovered 1620--people been discovering it ever since--some drink
+it--more walk on it--lounge on it--smoke on it--flirt on it--wonderful
+costumes in the morning--more wonderful in the afternoon--most wonderful
+in the evening! North Sands--South Sands--fine old Castle well
+placed--picturesque old town--well-built modern terraces, squares and
+streets--pony-chaises--riding-horses--Lift for lazy ones!
+Capital excursions--Oliver's Mount--Carnelian Bay--Scalby
+Mill--Hackness--Wykeham--Filey! Delightful gardens--secluded seats
+--hidden nooks--shady bowers--well-screened corners--Northern
+Belles--bright eyes--soft nothings--eloquent sighs--squozen
+hands--before you know where you are--ask papa--all up--dangerous very!
+Overcome by feelings--can't write any more--friend asks me to drink
+waters--query North Chalybeate or South Salt Well--wonder which--if in
+doubt try soda qualified with brandy--good people scarce--better run no
+risk!
+
+[Illustration: A CUTTER MAKING FOR THE PEER HEAD]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COSTUME IN KEEPING.--"Of all sweet things", said Bertha, "for the
+seaside, give me a serge." The Ancient Mariner shook his head. He didn't
+see the joke.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOARD AND LODGING!--_Landlady._ "Yes, sir, the board were certingly to
+be a guinea a week, but I didn't know as you was a-going to bathe in the
+sea before breakfast and take bottles of tonic during the day!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE DONKEYS' HOLIDAY
+
+With compliments to the S.P.C.A.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LABELLED!]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: NAUGHTICAL?
+
+_Yachting Friend_ (_playfully_). "Have you any experience of squalls,
+Brown?"
+
+_Brown._ "Squalls!" (_Seriously._) "My dear sir, I've brought up ten in
+family!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SOCIAL BEINGS
+
+Wearied by London dissipation, the Marjoribanks Browns go, for the sake
+of perfect quiet, to that picturesque little watering-place,
+Shrimpington-super-Mare, where they trust that they will not meet a
+single soul they know.
+
+Oddly enough, the Cholmondeley Joneses go to the same spot with the same
+purpose.
+
+Now, these Joneses and Browns cordially detest each other in London, and
+are not even on speaking terms; yet such is the depressing effect of
+"perfect quiet" that, as soon as they meet at Shrimpington-super-Mare,
+they rush into each other's arms with a wild sense of relief!]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: HEARTS OF OAK
+
+_Angelina_ (_who has never seen a revolving light before_). "How patient
+and persevering those sailors must be, Edwin! The wind has blown that
+light out six times since they first lit it, and they've lighted it
+again each time!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SHANKLIN]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SCILLY]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: HAYLING ISLAND]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MUMBLES]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "Now, mind, if any of those nasty people with cameras
+come near, you're to send them away!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SEASIDE SOLITUDE
+
+HIGHBURYBARN-ON-SEA
+
+(_From our Special Commissioner_)
+
+[Illustration: A CUTTER ROUNDING THE BUOY]
+
+Dear Mr. Punch,--This is a spot, which, according to your instructions,
+I reached last evening. In these same instructions you described it as
+"a growing place." I fancy it must be of the asparagus order, that
+vegetable, as you are well aware, taking three years in which to develop
+itself to perfection. Highburybarn-on-Sea is, I regret to say, in the
+first stage--judged from an asparagus point of view. I cannot entertain
+the enthusiastic description of the candid correspondent (I refer to the
+cutting forwarded by you from an eminent daily paper under the heading,
+"By the Golden Ocean.") He describes it as "an oasis on the desert coast
+of Great Britain." Far be it from me to deny the desert--all I object
+to is the oasis.
+
+[Illustration: Limpets]
+
+I ask you, sir, if you ever, in the course of the travels in which you
+have out-rivalled Stanley, Cameron, Livingstone, Harry de Windt, and,
+may I add, De Rougemont, ever came across an oasis, consisting of two
+score villas, built with scarcely baked bricks, reposing on an arid
+waste amid a number of tumbled-down cottages, and surmounted by a mighty
+workhouse-like hotel looking down on a pre-Adamite beershop?
+
+The sky was blue, the air was fresh, the waves had retreated to sea when
+I arrived in a jolting omnibus at Highburybarn-on-Sea, and deposited
+myself and luggage at the Metropolitan Hotel. A page-boy was playing
+airs on a Jew's-harp when I alighted on the sand-driven steps of the
+hostelry. He seemed surprised at my arrival, but in most respectful
+fashion placed his organ of minstrelsy in his jacket pocket, the while
+he conveyed my Gladstone bag to my apartment, secured by an interview
+with an elderly dame, who gave an intelligent but very wan smile when I
+suggested dinner. She referred me to the head waiter. This functionary
+pointed in grandiose fashion to the coffee-room, wherein some artistic
+wall-papering wag had committed atrocities on which it would be libel to
+comment.
+
+[Illustration: TAKING A DIP AND GETTING A BLOW]
+
+There was only one occupant, a short clean-shaven gentleman with white
+hair and a red nose, who was apparently chasing space. This turned out
+to be a militant blue-bottle. Meantime, the head-waiter produced his
+bill of fare, or rather the remains of it. Nearly every dish had
+apparently been consumed, for the most tempting _plats_ were removed
+from the _menu_ by a liberal application of red pencil. Finally, I
+decided on a fried sole and a steak. The white-haired man still pursued
+the blue-bottle.
+
+I went up to my room, and after washing with no soap I returned to the
+coffee-room. The blue-bottle still had the best of it. The head-waiter,
+after the lapse of an hour, informed me that the sole would not be long.
+When it arrived, I found that he spoke the truth. If you have any
+recollection of the repast which _Porthos_ endured when entertained by
+_Madame Coquenard_, you will have some notion of my feast. The
+head-waiter told me that some bare-legged persons who had waded into the
+water were shrimp-catchers. I only wished that I were one of them, for
+at least they found food.
+
+[Illustration: BIRCHINGTON]
+
+Later on I retired to rest. I was visited in the hours of darkness, to
+which I had consigned myself, by a horde of mosquitoes, imported, so I
+was informed in the morning, by American travellers, who never tipped
+the waiters. I fulfilled their obligations, still gazing on the auburn
+sand-drift, still looking on the sea, still feeling hungry and murmuring
+to myself, "Highburybarn-on-Sea would be a capital place for children,
+if I could only see any cows." A melancholy cocoa-nut shy by the
+station appeared to afford all the milk in the place.
+
+  Yours despondently,
+  NIBBLETHORPE NOBBS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES: MARGATE.--_Mother._ "Now, Tommy, which would
+you rather do--have a donkey ride or watch father bathe?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Bathing Woman._ "Master Franky wouldn't cry! No! Not
+he!--He'll come to his Martha, and bathe like a man!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE BATHING QUESTION
+
+Master Tommy is emphatically of the opinion that the sexes ought not to
+bathe together.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WHITBOROUGH. LOW TIDE. ARRIVAL OF THE SCARBY STEAMER]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "DENUDATION"
+
+_Niece_ (_after a header_). "Oh, aunt, you're not coming in with your
+spectacles on?"
+
+_Aunt Clarissa_ (_who is not used to bathe in the "open"_). "My dear, I
+positively won't take off anything more, I'm determined!!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO THE FIRST BATHING-MACHINE
+
+(_After Wordsworth_)
+
+[Illustration: MOORINGS]
+
+    O Blank new-comer! I have seen,
+      I see thee with a start:
+    So gentle looking a Machine,
+      Infernal one thou art!
+
+    When first the sun feels rather hot,
+      Or even rather warm,
+    From some dim, hibernating spot
+      Rolls forth thy clumsy form.
+
+    Perhaps thou babblest to the sea
+      Of sunshine and of flowers;
+    Thou bringest but a thought to me
+      Of such bad quarter hours.
+
+    I, grasping tightly, pale with fear,
+      Thy very narrow bench,
+    Thou, bounding on in wild career,
+      All shake, and jolt, and wrench.
+
+    Till comes an unexpected stop;
+      My forehead hits the door,
+    And I, with cataclysmic flop,
+      Lie on thy sandy floor.
+
+    Then, dressed in Nature's simplest style,
+      I, blushing, venture out;
+    And find the sea is still a mile
+      Away, or thereabout.
+
+    Blithe little children on the sand
+      Laugh out with childish glee;
+    Their nurses, sitting near at hand,
+      All giggling, stare at me.
+
+    Unnerved, unwashed, I rush again
+      Within thy tranquil shade,
+    And wait until the rising main
+      Shall banish child and maid.
+
+    Thy doors I dare not open now,
+      Thy windows give no view;
+    'Tis late; I will not bathe, I vow;
+      I dress myself anew.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "THALATTA! THALATTA!"
+
+_General chorus_ (_as the children's excursion nears its destination_).
+"Oh, I say! There's the sea! 'Ooray!!"
+
+_Small boy._ "I'll be in fust!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOW TO ENJOY A HOLIDAY
+
+_A Social Contrast_
+
+[Illustration: ILE OF MAN]
+
+
+I.--THE WRONG WAY
+
+_Pater._ Here at last! A nice reward for a long and tedious journey!
+
+_Mater._ Well, you were always complaining in town.
+
+_Pater._ Broken chairs, rickety table, and a hideous wall-paper!
+
+_Mater._ Well, I didn't buy the chairs, make the table, or choose the
+wall-paper. Discontent is your strong point.
+
+_Pater._ And is likely to remain so. Really, that German band is
+unbearable!
+
+_Mater._ My dear, you have no ear for music. Why, you don't even care
+for my songs! You used to say you liked them once.
+
+_Pater._ So I did--thirty years ago!
+
+_Mater._ Before our marriage! And I have survived thirty years!
+
+_Pater._ Eh? What do you mean by that, madam?
+
+_Mater._ Anything you please. But come--dinner's ready.
+
+_Pater._ Dinner! The usual thing, I suppose--underdone fish and overdone
+meat!
+
+_Mater._ Well, I see that you are determined to make the best of
+everything, my dear!
+
+_Pater._ I am glad you think so, my darling!
+
+    [_And so they sit down to dinner._
+
+
+II.--THE RIGHT WAY.
+
+_Pater._ Here at last! What a charming spot! A fitting sequel to a very
+pleasant journey!
+
+_Mater._ And yet you are very fond of town!
+
+_Pater._ This room reminds me of my own cozy study. Venerable chairs, a
+strange old table, and a quaintly-designed wall-paper.
+
+_Mater._ Well, I think if I had had to furnish the house, I should have
+chosen the same things myself. But had they been ever so ugly, I feel
+sure that you would have liked them. You know, sir, that content is your
+strong point.
+
+_Pater._ I am sure that I shall find no opportunity of getting any merit
+(after the fashion of _Mark Tapley_) for being contented in this
+pleasant spot. What a capital German band!
+
+_Mater._ I don't believe that you understand anything about music, sir.
+Why, you even pretend that you like my old songs!
+
+_Pater._ And so I do. Every day I live I like them better and better.
+And yet I heard them for the first time thirty years ago!
+
+_Mater._ When we were married! And so I have survived thirty years!
+
+_Pater._ Eh? What do you mean by that, madam?
+
+_Mater._ That I am a living proof that kindness never kills. How happy
+we have been! But come--dinner's ready.
+
+_Pater._ Dinner! The usual thing, I suppose--a nice piece of fish and a
+juicy joint. Now, that's just what I like. So much better than our
+pretentious London dinners! Not that a London dinner is not very good in
+its proper place.
+
+_Mater._ Well, I see that you are determined to make the best of
+everything, my dear.
+
+_Pater._ I am glad you think so, my darling!
+
+    [_And so they sit down to dinner._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A GOAT AND TWO KIDS]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AWFUL SCENE ON THE CHAIN PIER, BRIGHTON
+
+_Nursemaid._ "Lawk! There goes Charley, and he's took his mar's parasol.
+What _will_ missus say?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Temperance Enthusiast._ "Look at the beautiful lives our
+first parents led. Do you suppose _they_ ever gave way to strong drink?"
+
+_The Reprobate._ "I 'xpect Eve must 'a' done. She saw snakes!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A POWERFUL QUARTET
+
+(At all events it looks and sounds like one)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration]
+
+SWEETS OF THE SEASIDE.
+
+_Shingleton, near Dulborough._
+
+SYMPATHISING MR. PUNCH,
+
+With the desire of enjoying a few days of tranquillity and a few dips in
+the sea, I have arrived and taken lodgings at this "salubrious
+watering-place" (as the guide-books choose to call it), having heard
+that it was quiet, and possessed of a steep, cleanly, and bathe-inviting
+beach. As to the latter point, I find that fame has not belied it; but
+surely with a view to tempt me into suicide, some demon must have
+coupled the term "quiet" with this place. Quiet! Gracious Powers of
+Darkness! if this be your idea of a quiet spot to live in, I wonder
+what, according to your notion, need be added to its tumult to make a
+noisy town. Here is a list of aural tortures wherewith we are tormented,
+which may serve by way of time-table to advertise the musical
+attractions of the place:--
+
+1 A.M.--Voices of the night. Revellers returning home.
+
+1.30 A.M.--Duet, "_Io t'amo_", squealed upon the tiles, by the famous
+feline vocalists Mademoiselle Minette and Signor Catterwaulini.
+
+2 A.M.--Barc-arole and chorus, "_Bow wow wow_" (BACH), by the Bayers of
+the Moon.
+
+3 A.M.--Song without words, by the early village cock.
+
+3.30 A.M.--Chorus by his neighbours, high and low, mingling the treble
+of the Bantam with the Brahma's thorough bass.
+
+[Illustration: ENJOYING THE HEIGHT OF THE SEAS-ON]
+
+4 A.M.--Twittering of swallows, and chirping of early birds, before they
+go to catch their worms.
+
+4.45 A.M.--Meeting of two natives, of course _just_ under your window,
+who converse in a stage-whisper at the tip-top of their voices.
+
+5 A.M.--Stampede of fishermen, returning from their night's work in
+their heavy boots.
+
+6 A.M.--Start of shrimpers, barefooted, but occasionally bawling.
+
+7 A.M.--Shutters taken down, and small boys sally forth and shout to one
+another from the two ends of the street.
+
+7.15 A.M.--"So-holes! fine fresh so-holes!"
+
+7.30 A.M.--"Mack'reel! fower a shillun! Ma-a-ack'reel!"
+
+8 A.M.--Piano play begins, and goes on until midnight.
+
+8.25 A.M.--Barrel-organ at the corner. Banjo in the distance.
+
+9 A.M.--German band to right of you. Ophicleide out of time, clarionette
+out of tune.
+
+9.30 A.M.--"Pa-aper, mornin' pa-aper! _Daily Telegraft!_"
+
+9.45 A.M.--German band to left of you. Clarionette and cornet both out
+of time and tune.
+
+10.15 A.M.--A key-bugler and a bag-piper a dozen yards apart.
+
+11 A.M.--Performance of Punch and Toby, who barks more than is good for
+him.
+
+11.30 A.M.--Bellowing black-faced ballad-bawlers, with their banjoes and
+their bones.
+
+Such is our daily programme of music until noon, and such, with sundry
+variations, it continues until midnight. Small wonder that I have so
+little relish for my meals, and that, in spite of the sea air, I can
+hardly sleep a wink. I shall return to Town to-morrow, for surely all
+the street tormentors must be out of it, judging by the numbers that now
+plague the sad seaside.
+
+  MISERRIMUS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: REDCAR]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MEETING OF THE OLD AND NEW PEERS AT BRIGHTON]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WALTON ON THE NAZE]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "THE MEAT SUPPLY"
+
+_Bathing-man._ "Yes, mum, he's a good old 'orse yet. And he's been in
+the salt water so long, he'll make capital biled beef when we're done
+with him!!!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Our Poetess._ "Do not talk to me of dinner, Edwin. I must stay by this
+beautiful Sea, and _drink it all in_!"
+
+_Bill the Boatman._ "Lor! She's a thirsty one too!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: HOW TO KILL TIME AT THE SEASIDE
+
+Hire bath-chairs, put the bath-chairmen inside, and drag them as fast as
+you can up and down the parade.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: INOPPORTUNE
+
+_Enthusiast of the "No Hat Brigade"_ (_to elderly gentleman, who has
+just lost his hat_). "Fine idea this, sir, for the hair, eh?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Jones._ "Hullo, Brown, what's the matter with you and
+Mrs. Brown?"
+
+_Brown._ "Matter? Why, do you know what they call us down here? They
+call us Beauty and the Beast! Now I should like to know what my poor
+wife has done to get such a name as that!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE TREACHEROUS TIDE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    I sat on a slippery rock,
+      In the grey cliff's opal shade,
+    And the wanton waves went curvetting by
+      Like a roystering cavalcade.
+    And they doffed their crested plumes,
+      As they kissed the blushing sand,
+    Till her rosy face dimpled over with smiles
+      At the tricks of the frolicsome band.
+
+    Then the kittywake laughed, "Ha! ha!"
+      And the sea-mew wailed with pain,
+    As she sailed away on the shivering wind
+      To her home o'er the surging main.
+    And the jelly-fish quivered with rage,
+      While the dog-crabs stood by to gaze,
+    And the star-fish spread all her fingers abroad,
+      And sighed for her grandmothers' days.
+
+    And the curlew screamed, "Fie! fie!"
+      And the great gull groaned at the sight,
+    And the albatross rose and fled with a shriek
+      To her nest on the perilous height.
+
+       * * * * *
+
+    Good gracious! the place where I sat
+      With sea-water was rapidly filling,
+    And a hoarse voice cried, "Sir, you're caught by the tide!
+      And I'll carry ye off for a shilling!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A SAIL OVER THE BAY]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"LOCAL COLOUR."--PLACE: South Parade, Cheapenham-on-Sea.--_Edith._
+"Mabel dear, would you get me _Baedeker's Switzerland_ and the last
+Number of the _World_."
+
+_Mabel._ "What do you want _them_ for?"
+
+_Edith._ "Oh, I'm writing letters, and we're in the Engadine, you know,
+and I just want to describe some of our favourite haunts, and mention a
+few of the people who are staying there--here, I mean."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SCENT BEES]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE LAY OF THE LAST LODGER
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I.
+
+    Oh dreary, dreary, dreary me!
+      My jaw is sore with yawning--
+    I'm weary of the dreary sea,
+    With its roaring beach
+    Where sea-gulls screech,
+    And shrimpers shrimp,
+    And limpets limp,
+    And winkles wink,
+    And trousers shrink;
+    And the groaning, moaning, droning tide
+    Goes splashing and dashing from side to side,
+    With all its might, from morn to night,
+      And from night to morning's dawning.
+
+II.
+
+    The shore's a flood of puddly mud,
+      And the rocks are limy and slimy--
+    And I've tumbled down with a thud--good lud!--
+    And I fear I swore,
+    For something tore;
+    And my shoes are full
+    Of the stagnant pool;
+    And hauling, sprawling, crawling crabs
+    Have got in my socks with star-fish and dabs;
+    And my pockets are swarming with polypes and prawns,
+    And noisome beasts with shells and horns,
+    That scrunch and scrape, and goggle and gape,
+    Are up my sleeve, I firmly believe--
+      And I'm horribly rimy and grimy.
+
+III.
+
+    I'm sick of the strand, and the sand, and the band,
+      And the niggers and jiggers and dodgers;
+    And the cigars of rather doubtful brand;
+    And my landlady's "rights",
+    And the frequent fights
+    On wretched points
+    Of ends of joints,
+    Which disappear, with my brandy and beer,
+    In a way that, to say the least, is queer.
+    And to mingle among the throng I long,
+    And to poke my joke and warble my song--
+    But there's no one near
+    On sands or pier,
+    For everyone's gone and I'm left alone,
+      The Last of the Seaside Lodgers!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FILEY]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTE BY OUR MAN OUT OF TOWN--Watering places--resorts where the visitor
+is pumped dry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A STARTLING PROPOSITION
+
+_Seedy Individual_ (_suddenly and with startling vigour_)--
+
+    "Aoh! Floy with me ercross ther sea,
+    Ercross ther dork lergoon!!"
+
+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: CROWDED STATE OF LODGING HOUSES
+
+_Lodging-House Keeper._ "On'y this room to let, mem. A four-post--a
+tent--and a very comfortable double-bedded chest of drawers for the
+young gentlemen."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A WET DAY AT THE SEASIDE
+
+Why does not some benefactor to his species discover and publish to a
+grateful world some rational way of spending a wet day at the seaside?
+Why should it be something so unutterably miserable and depressing that
+its mere recollection afterwards makes one shudder?
+
+This is the first really wet day that we have had for a fortnight, but
+what a day! From morn to dewy eve, a summer's day, and far into the
+black night, the pitiless rain has poured and poured and poured. I broke
+the unendurable monotony of gazing from the weeping windows of my
+seaside lodging, by rushing out wildly and plunging madly into the rainy
+sea, and got drenched to the skin both going and returning. After
+changing everything, as people say but don't mean, and thinking I saw
+something like a break in the dull leaden clouds, I again rushed out,
+and called on Jones, who has rooms in an adjacent terrace, and, with
+some difficulty, persuaded him to accompany me to the only billiard
+table in the miserable place. We both got gloriously wet on our way to
+this haven of amusement, and were received with the pleasing
+intelligence that it was engaged by a private party of two, who had
+taken it until the rain ceased, and, when that most improbable event
+happened, two other despairing lodgers had secured the reversion.
+Another rush home, another drenching, another change of everything,
+except the weather, brought the welcome sight of dinner, over which we
+fondly lingered for nearly two mortal hours.
+
+But one cannot eat all day long, even at the seaside on a wet day, and
+accordingly at four o'clock I was again cast upon my own resources.
+I received, I confess, a certain amount of grim satisfaction at seeing
+Brown--Bumptious Brown, as we call him in the City, he being a common
+councilman, or a liveryman, or something of that kind--pass by in a fly,
+with heaps of luggage and children, all looking so depressingly
+wet,--and if he had not the meanness to bring with him, in a half-dozen
+hamper, six bottles of his abominable Gladstone claret! He grinned at
+me as he passed, like a Chester cat, I think they call that remarkable
+animal, and I afterwards learnt the reason. He had been speculating for
+a rise in wheat, and, as he vulgarly said, the rain suited his book, and
+he only hoped it would last for a week or two! Ah! the selfishness of
+some men! What cared he about my getting wet through twice in one day,
+so long as it raised the price of his wretched wheat?
+
+My wife coolly recommended me to read the second volume of a new novel
+she had got from the Library, called, I think, _East Glynne_, or some
+such name, but how can a man read in a room with four stout healthy boys
+and a baby, especially when the said baby is evidently very
+uncomfortable, and the four boys are playing at leap-frog? Women have
+this wonderful faculty, my wife to a remarkable extent. I have often,
+with unfeigned astonishment, seen her apparently lost in the sentimental
+troubles of some imaginary heroine, while the noisy domestic realities
+around her have gone on unheeded.
+
+I again took my place at the window, and gazed upon the melancholy sea,
+and remembered, with a smile of bitter irony, how I had agreed to pay an
+extra guinea a week for the privilege of facing the sea!--and such a
+sea! It was, of course, very low water--it generally is at this charming
+place; and the sea had retired to its extremest distance, as if utterly
+ashamed of its dull, damp, melancholy appearance. And there stood that
+ridiculous apology for a pier, with its long, lanky, bandy legs, on
+which I have been dragged every evening to hear the band play. Such a
+band! The poor wheezy cornet was bad enough, but the trombone, with its
+two notes that it jerked out like the snorts of a starting train, was a
+caution. Oh! that poor "_Sweetheart_", with which we were favoured every
+evening! I always pictured her to myself sitting at a window listening,
+enraptured, to a serenade from that trombone!
+
+But there's no band to-night, not a solitary promenader on the
+bandy-legged pier, I even doubt if the pier master is sitting as usual
+at the receipt of custom, and I pull down the blind, to shut out the
+miserable prospect, with such an energetic jerk that I bring down the
+whole complicated machinery, and nearly frighten baby into a fit, while
+the four irreverent boys indulge in a loud guffaw.
+
+Thank goodness, on Saturday I exchange our miserable, wheezy, asthmatic
+band for the grand orchestra of the Covent Garden Promenade Concerts,
+and the awful perfume of rotten seaweed for the bracing atmosphere of
+glorious London.
+
+  AN OUTSIDER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: BOATMAN SECURING A LIVELY-HOOD]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ON HIS HONEYMOON TOO!
+
+_Man with Sand Ponies._ "Now then, Mister, you an' the young lady, a
+pony apiece? 'Ere y'are!"
+
+_Snobley_ (_loftily_). "Aw--I'm not accustomed to that class of animal."
+
+_Man_ (_readily_). "Ain't yer, sir? Ne' mind." (_To boy._) "'Ere, Bill,
+look sharp! Gent'll have a donkey!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SEASIDE SPLITTERS
+
+[Illustration:
+
+LOW-TIED
+
+ROCKS
+
+SEE-WEED
+
+MUSCLE GATHERERS
+
+A KNAW WESTER
+
+HIGH TIED]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LIFE WOULD BE PLEASANT, BUT FOR ITS "PLEASURES."--_Sir
+Cornewall Lewis_
+
+In consequence of the English watering-places being crowded, people are
+glad to find sleeping accommodation in the bathing-machines.
+
+_Boots_ (_from Jones's Hotel_). "I've brought your shaving water, sir;
+and you'll please to take care of your boots on the steps, gents: the
+tide's just a comin' in!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: RETURNING HOME FROM THE SEASIDE
+
+All the family have colds, except the under-nurse, who has a face-ache.
+Poor materfamilias, who originated the trip, is in despair at all the
+money spent for nothing, and gives way to tears. Paterfamilias
+endeavours to console her with the reflection that "_he_ knew how it
+would be, but that, after all, St. John's Wood, where they live, is such
+a healthy place that, with care and doctoring, they _will soon be nearly
+as well as if they had never left it_!"
+
+    [_Two gay bachelors may be seen contemplating paterfamilias and his
+    little group. Their interest is totally untinged with envy._
+
+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OVERHEARD AT SCARBOROUGH
+
+"Do you know anything good for a cold?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Have you got the price of two Scotch whiskies on you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then it's no use my telling you."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Snobson_ (_to inhabitant of out-of-way seaside resort_).
+"What sort of people do you get down here in the summer?"
+
+_Inhabitant._ "Oh, all sorts, zur. There be fine people an' common
+people, an' some just half-an'-half, like yourself, zur."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE OYSTERS AT WHITSTABLE FROZEN IN THEIR BEDS!
+
+(_See Daily Papers_)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A DELICIOUS DIP.
+
+_Bathing Attendant._ "Here, Bill! The gent wants to be took out
+deep--take 'im _into the drain_!!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _She._ "How much was old Mr. Baskerville's estate sworn
+at by his next-of-kin?"
+
+_He._ "Oh--a pretty good lot."
+
+_She._ "Really? Why, I heard he died worth hardly anything!"
+
+_He._ "Yes, so he did--that's just it."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: EVIDENCE OLFACTORY
+
+_Angelina_ (_scientific_). "Do you smell the iodine from the sea, Edwin?
+Isn't it refreshing?"
+
+_Old Salt_ (_overhearing_). "What you smell ain't the sea, miss. It's
+the town drains as flows out just 'ere!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OBLIGING.
+
+_Excursionist_ (_to himself_). "Ullo! 'ere's one o' them artists.
+'Dessay 'e'll want a genteel figger for 'is foreground. I'll _stand for
+'im_!!!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TRUE DIPSOMANIA.--Overbathing at the seaside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AN IDLE HOLIDAY.
+
+    When the days are bright and hot,
+      In the month of August,
+    When the sunny hours are not
+      Marred by any raw gust,
+    Then I turn from toil with glee,
+      Sing a careless canto,
+    And to somewhere by the sea
+      Carry my portmanteau.
+
+    Shall I, dreaming on the sand,
+      Pleased with all things finite,
+    Envy Jones who travels and
+      Climbs an Apennine height--
+    Climbs a rugged peak with pain,
+      Literally speaking,
+    Only to descend again
+      Fagged with pleasure-seeking?
+
+    Smith, who, worn with labour, went
+      Off for rest and leisure,
+    Races round the Continent
+      In pursuit of pleasure:
+    Having lunched at Bale, he will
+      At Lucerne his tea take,
+    Riding till he's faint and ill,
+      Tramping till his feet ache.
+
+    Shall I, dreaming thus at home,
+      Left ashore behind here,
+    Envy restless men who roam
+      Seeking what I find here?
+    Since beside my native sea,
+      Where I sit to woo it,
+    Pleasure always comes to me,
+      Why should I pursue it?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE MURMUR OF THE TIED]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EXTRA SPECIAL.--_Paterfamilias_ (_inspecting bill, to landlady_). I
+thought you said, Mrs. Buggins, when I took these apartments, that there
+were no extras, but here I find boots, lights, cruets, fire,
+table-linen, sheets, blankets and kitchen fire charged.
+
+_Mrs. Buggins._ Lor' bless you, sir, they're not extras, but
+necessaries.
+
+_Paterfamilias._ What, then, do you consider extras?
+
+_Mrs. Buggins._ Well, sir, that's a difficult question to answer, but I
+should suggest salad oil, fly-papers, and turtle soup.
+
+    [_Paterfamilias drops the subject and pays his account._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SUSPICION
+
+_Stout Visitor_ (_on discovering that, during his usual nap after
+luncheon, he has been subjected to a grossly personal practical joke_).
+"It's one o' those dashed artists that are staying at the 'Lord Nelson'
+'a' done this, I know!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Aunt Jane._ "It's wonderful how this wireless telegraphy
+is coming into use!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A DREAM OF THE SEA
+
+Ethel, who is not to have a seaside trip this year, dreams every night
+that she and her mamma and aunt and sisters spread their sash-bows and
+panniers and fly away to the yellow sands.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MARGATE BATHING-WOMAN'S LAMENT
+
+    It nearly broke my widowed art,
+      When first I tuk the notion,
+    That parties didn't as they used,
+      Take reglar to the ocean.
+
+    The hinfants, darling little soles,
+      Still cum quite frequent, bless 'em!
+    But they is only sixpence each,
+      Which hardly pays to dress 'em.
+
+    The reason struck me all at once,
+      Says I, "It's my opinion,
+    The grown-up folks no longer bathes
+      Because of them vile Sheenions."
+
+    The last as cum drest in that style,
+      Says, as she tuk it horf her,
+    "I'm sure I shall not know the way
+      To re-arrange my quoffur!"
+
+    By which she ment the ed of air,
+      Which call it wot they will, sir;
+    Cum doubtless off a convict at
+      Millbank or Pentonville, sir.
+
+    The Parliament should pass a law,
+      Which there's sufficient reason;
+    That folks as wear the Sheenions should
+      Bathe reg'lar in the season.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A LANCASHIRE WATERING-PLACE]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"MERRY MARGIT"
+
+(_Another communication from the side of the dear sea waves_)
+
+I was told it was greatly improved--that there were alterations in the
+sea-front suggestive of the best moments of the Thames Embankment--that
+quite "smart" people daily paraded the pier. So having had enough of
+"Urn-bye", I moved on. The improvements scarcely made themselves felt at
+the railway station. Seemingly they had not attracted what Mr. Jeames
+would call "the upper suckles." There were the customary British
+middle-class matron from Peckham, looking her sixty summers to the full
+in a sailor hat; the seaside warrior first cousin to the billiard-marker
+captain with flashy rings, beefy hands, and a stick of pantomime
+proportions, and the theatrical lady whose connection with the stage I
+imagine was confined to capering before the footlights. However, they
+all were there, as I had seen them any summer these twenty years.
+
+But I had been told to go to the Pier, and so to the Pier I went,
+glancing on my way at the entertainers on the sands, many of whom I
+found to be old friends. Amongst them was the "h"-less phrenologist,
+whose insight into character apparently satisfied the parents of any
+child whose head he selected to examine. Thus, if he said that a
+particularly stupid-looking little boy would make a good architect,
+schoolmaster, or traveller for fancy goods, a gentleman in an
+alpaca-coat and a wide-awake hat would bow gratified acquiescence, a
+demonstration that would also be evoked from a lady in a dust cloak,
+when the lecturer insisted that a giggling little girl would make a
+"first-rate dressmaker and cutter-out."
+
+Arrived at the Pier, I found there was twopence to pay for the privilege
+of using the extension, which included a restaurant, a band, some
+talented fleas, and a shop with a window partly devoted to the display
+of glass tumblers, engraved with legends of an amusing character, such
+as "Good old Mother-in-Law", "Jack's Night Cap", "Aunt Julia's Half
+Pint", and so on. There were a number of seats and shelters, and below
+the level of the shops was a landing-stage, at which twice a day two
+steamers from or to London removed or landed passengers. During the rest
+of the four-and-twenty hours it seemed to be occupied by a solitary
+angler, catching chiefly seaweed. The Band, in spite of its uniform, was
+not nearly so military as that at "Urn Bye." It contained a
+pianoforte--an instrument upon which I found the young gentleman who
+sold the programmes practising during a pause between the morning's
+selection and the afternoon's performances. But still the Band was a
+very tuneful one, and increased the pleasure that the presence of so
+many delightful promenaders was bound to produce. Many of the ladies who
+walked round and round, talking courteously to 'Arry in all his
+varieties, wore men's _habits_, _pur et simple_ (giving them the
+semblance of appearing in their shirt-sleeves), while their heads were
+adorned with fair wigs and sailor hats, apparently fixed on together.
+
+These free-and-easy-looking damsels did not seem to find favour in the
+eyes of certain other ladies of a sedater type, who regarded them (over
+their novels) with undisguised contempt. These other ladies, I should
+think, from their conversation and appearance, must have been the very
+flowers of the flock of Brixton Rise, and the _creme de la creme_ of
+Peckham Rye society. Of course there were a number of more or less known
+actors and actresses from London, some of them enjoying a brief holiday,
+and others engaged in the less lucrative occupation of "resting."
+
+However, the dropping of "h's", even to the accompaniment of sweet
+music, sooner or later becomes monotonous, and so, after awhile, I was
+glad to leave the Pier for the attractions of the Upper Cliff. On my way
+I passed a Palace of Pleasure or Varieties, or Something wherein a
+twopenny wax-work show seemed at the moment to be one of its greatest
+attractions. This show contained a Chamber of Horrors, a scene full of
+quiet humour of Napoleon the Third Lying in State, and an old effigy of
+George the Third. The collection included the waxen head of a
+Nonconformist minister, who, according to the lecturer, had been "wery
+good to the poor", preserved in a small deal-box. There was also the
+"Key-Dyevie" of Egypt, General Gordon, and Mrs. Maybrick. Tearing myself
+away from these miscellaneous memories of the past, I ascended to the
+East Cliff, which had still the "apartments-furnished" look that was
+wont to distinguish it of yore. There was no change there; and as I
+walked through the town, which once, as a watering-place, was second
+only in importance to Bath,--which a century ago had for its M.C. a
+rival of Beau Nash,--I could not help thinking how astonished the ghosts
+of the fine ladies and gentlemen who visited "Meregate" in 1789 must be,
+if they are able to see their successors of to-day--"Good Old Chawlie
+Cadd", and Miss Topsie Stuart Plantagenet, _nee_ Tompkins.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: DEAL]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "NICE FOR THE VISITORS"
+
+(Sketch outside a fashionable hotel)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Boy_ (_to Brown, who is exceedingly proud of his
+sporting appearance_). "Want a donkey, mister?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: INCORRIGIBLE
+
+_Visitor._ "Well, my man, I expect it must have cost you a lot of money
+to paint your nose that colour!"
+
+_Reprobate._ "Ah, an' if Oi cud affoord it, Oi'd have it _varnished_
+now!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTE"
+
+_Materfamilias_ (_just arrived at Shrimpville--the children had been
+down a month before_). "Well, Jane, have you found it dull?"
+
+_Nurse._ "It was at fust, M'm. There was nothink to improve the mind,
+M'm, till the niggers come down!!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: BY THE SAD SEA WAVES
+
+"But, are you sure?"
+
+"Yus, lady. 'E's strong as an 'orse!"
+
+"But how am I to get on?"
+
+"Oh, _I'll lift yer_!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: DELICATE ATTENTION
+
+_Confiding Spinster._ "I'm afraid the sea is too cold for me this
+morning, Mr. Swabber."
+
+_Bathing Man._ "Cold, miss! Lor' bless yer, I just took and powered a
+kittle o' bilin' water in to take the chill off when I see you a
+comin'!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: HOLIDAY PLEASURES
+
+_Injured Individual._ "Heigho! I _did_ think I should find some refuge
+from the miseries of the seaside in the comforts of a bed! Just look
+where my feet are, Maria!"
+
+_His Wife._ "_Well_, John! it's _only_ for a _month_, you know!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: BLIGHTED HOPES
+
+_Extract of letter from Laura to Lillie_:--"I declare, dear, I never
+gave the absurd creature the slightest encouragement. I did say, one
+evening, I thought the little sandy coves about Wobbleswick were
+charming, especially one. _The idea!_--of his thinking I was alluding to
+him!"----&c., &c.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SENSITIVE
+
+"I think I told you, in my letter of the first of October, of his absurd
+interpretation of an innocent remark of mine about the sandy shores of
+Wobbleswick. Well, would you believe it, dear! we were strolling on the
+Esplanade, the other day, when he suddenly left Kate and me, and took
+himself off in a tremendous huff because we said we liked walking _with
+an object_!!"
+
+    [_Extract from a later letter of Laura's to Lillie._
+
+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PREHISTORIC PEEPS
+
+"No bathing to-day!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PREHISTORIC PEEPS
+
+A Nocturne which would seem to show that "residential flats" were not
+wholly unknown even in primeval times!]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Blinks._ "The sun 'll be over the yard-arm in ten
+minutes. _Then_ we'll have a drink!"
+
+_Jinks._ "I think I'll have one while I'm waiting!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: TRIALS OF A CONVALESCENT
+
+_Tompkins_ (_in a feeble voice, for the fourth or fifth time, with no
+result_). "Chairman!!! chairman!!!"
+
+_That Awful Boy._ "Lydies and gentlemen----!!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SEASIDE ASIDES
+
+(_Paterfamilias in North Cornwall_)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    Oh! how delightful now at last to come
+      Away from town--its dirt, its degradation,
+    Its never-ending whirl, its ceaseless hum.
+      (A long chalks better, though, than sheer stagnation.)
+
+    For what could mortal man or maid want more
+      Than breezy downs to stroll on, rocks to climb up,
+    Weird labyrinthine caverns to explore?
+      (There's nothing else to do to fill the time up.)
+
+    Your honest face here earns an honest brown,
+      You ramble on for miles 'mid gorse and heather,
+    Sheep hold athletic sports upon the down
+      (Which makes the mutton taste as tough as leather).
+
+    The place is guiltless, too, of horrid piers.
+      And likewise is not Christy-Minstrel tooney;
+    No soul-distressing strains disturb your ears.
+      (A German band has just played "_Annie Rooney_".)
+
+    The eggs as fresh as paint, the Cornish cream
+      The boys from school all say is "simply ripping."
+    The butter, so the girls declare, "a dream."
+      (The only baccy you can buy quite dripping.)
+
+    A happiness of resting after strife,
+      Where one forgets all worldly pain and sorrow,
+    And one contentedly could pass one's life.
+      (A telegram will take _me_ home to-morrow.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SCENE: MARGATE BEACH ON EASTER MONDAY.--_First Lady._ "Oh, here comes a
+steamer. How high she is out of the water."
+
+_Second Lady._ "Yes, dear, but don't you see? It's because the tide's so
+low."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AWKWARD
+
+_The aristocratic Jones_ (_rather ashamed of his loud acquaintance,
+Brown_). "You must excuse me, but if there's one thing in the world I
+particularly object to, it's to having anybody take my arm!"
+
+_Brown._ "All right, old fellow!--_you_ take _mine_!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SEASIDE VISITOR'S VADE MECUM.
+
+_Question._ Is it your intention to leave London at once to benefit by
+the ocean breezes on the English coast?
+
+_Answer._ Certainly, with the bulk of my neighbours.
+
+_Q._ Then the metropolis will become empty?
+
+_A._ Practically, for only about three and a half millions out of the
+four millions will be left behind.
+
+_Q._ What do you consider the remaining residuum?
+
+_A._ From a West End point of view a negligible quantity.
+
+_Q._ Do not some of the Eastenders visit the seaside?
+
+_A._ Yes, at an earlier period in the year, when they pay rather more
+for their accommodation than their neighbours of the West.
+
+_Q._ How can this be, if it be assumed that the East is poorer than the
+West?
+
+_A._ The length of the visit is governed by the weight of the purse.
+Belgravia stays a couple of months at Eastbourne, while three days at
+Margate is enough for Shoreditch.
+
+_Q._ Has a sojourn by the sea waves any disadvantages?
+
+_A._ Several. In the first instance, lodgings are frequently expensive
+and uncomfortable. Then there is always a chance that the last lodgers
+may have occupied their rooms as convalescents. Lastly, it is not
+invariably the case that the climate agrees with himself and his family.
+
+_Q._ And what becomes of the house in town?
+
+_A._ If abandoned to a caretaker, the reception rooms may be used by her
+own family as best chambers, and if let to strangers, the furniture may
+be injured irretrievably.
+
+_Q._ But surely in the last case there would be the certainty of
+pecuniary indemnity?
+
+_A._ Cherished relics cannot be restored by their commonplace value in
+money.
+
+_Q._ Then, taking one thing with another, the benefit of a visit to the
+seaside is questionable?
+
+_A._ Assuredly; and an expression of heartfelt delight at the
+termination of the outing and the consequent return home is the
+customary finish to the, styled by courtesy, holiday.
+
+_Q._ But has not the seaside visit a compensating advantage?
+
+_A._ The seaside visit has a compensating advantage of overwhelming
+proportions, which completely swallows up and effaces all suggestions of
+discomfort--it is the fashion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PARIS?
+
+"Not if I know it! Give me a quiet month at the seaside, and leave me
+alone, please!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: CONVERSATIONAL PITFALLS
+
+_Irene._ "Do you remember Kitty Fowler?"
+
+_Her Friend._ "No, I don't."
+
+_Irene._ "Oh, you _must_ remember Kitty. She was the plainest girl in
+Torquay. But I forgot--that was after you left!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Visitor._ "Have you ever seen the sea-serpent?"
+
+_Boatman._ "No, sir. I'm a temperance man."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SEPARATE INTERESTS
+
+_Husband._ "Hi! Maria! Take care of the paint!"
+
+_Painter._ "It don't matter, ma'am. It'll all 'ave to be painted
+again!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: CAUTION TO YOUNG LADIES WHO RIDE IN CRINOLINE ON DONKEYS]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MARGATE
+
+_Chatty Visitor._ "I like the place. I always come here. 'Worst of it
+is, it's a little too dressy!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: UNLUCKY COMPLIMENTS
+
+_Shy but Susceptible Youth._ "Er--_could_ you tell me who that young
+lady is--sketching?"
+
+_Affable Stranger._ "She has the misfortune to be my wife!"
+
+_Shy but Susceptible One_ (_desperately anxious to please, and losing
+all presence of mind_). "Oh--the misfortune's entirely _yours_, I'm
+_sure_!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BRILLIANT SUGGESTION (_Overheard at the Seaside_).--_She._ "So much
+nicer now that all the visitors have gone. Don't you think so?"
+
+_He._ "Yes, by Jove! So jolly nice and quiet! Often wonder that
+_everybody_ doesn't come now when there's nobody here, don't you know!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A NUISANCE.
+
+_Miss Priscilla._ "Yes; it's a beautiful view. But tourists are in the
+habit of bathing on the opposite shore, and that's rather a drawback."
+
+_Fair Visitor._ "Dear me! but at such a distance as that--surely----"
+
+_Miss Priscilla._ "Ah, but with a _telescope_, you know!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SEASIDE PHOTOGRAPHER
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    I do not mean the Kodak fiend,
+      Who takes snap-shots of ladies dipping,
+    And gloats o'er sundry views he's gleaned
+      Of amatory couples "tripping."
+
+    No, not these playful amateurs
+      I sing of, but the serious artist,
+    Who spreads upon the beach his lures,
+      What time the season's at its smartest.
+
+    His tongue is glib, his terms are cheap,
+      For ninepence while you wait he'll take you;
+    Posterity shall, marv'lling, keep
+      The "tin-type" masterpiece he'll make you.
+
+    What though his camera be antique,
+      His dark-room just a nose-bag humble,
+    What if his tripod legs are weak,
+      And threaten constantly to tumble.
+
+    No swain nor maiden can withstand
+      His invitation arch, insidious,
+    To pose _al fresco_ on the strand--
+      His _clientele_ are not fastidious.
+
+    "You are so lovely", says the wretch,
+      "Your picture will be quite entrancing!"
+    And to the lady in the sketch
+      I overheard him thus romancing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE RULING PASSION
+
+_Sir Talbot Howard Vere de Vere._ "Ah! Good morning, Mrs. Jones!
+Dreadful accident just occurred. Poor young lady riding along the King's
+Road--horse took fright--reared, and fell back upon her--dreadfully
+injured, I'm sorry to say!"
+
+_Mrs. Woodbee Swellington Jones._ "_Quite_ too shocking, dear Sir
+Talbot! Was she--er--a person of position?"
+
+_Sir Talbot Howard Vere de Vere._ "POSITION, by George!! Dooced
+uncomfortable position, too, I should say!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD
+
+_Bertie._ "Gertie, do just go back to the beach and fetch me a baby
+(you'll find a lot about), and I'll show you all the different ways of
+saving it from drowning!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANNALS OF A WATERING-PLACE THAT HAS "SEEN ITS DAY"
+
+[Illustration: TYNEMOUTH]
+
+The weather which, in Mr. Dunstable's varied experience of
+five-and-twenty years, he assures me, has never been so bad, having at
+length afforded some indications of "breaking", I make the acquaintance,
+through Mrs. Cobbler, of Mr. Wisterwhistle, proprietor of the one
+bath-chair available for the invalid of Torsington-on-Sea, who, like
+myself, stands in need of the salubrious air of that health-giving
+resort, but who is ordered by his medical adviser to secure it with the
+least possible expenditure of physical strength.
+
+Both Mr. Wisterwhistle and his chair are peculiar in their respective
+ways, and each has a decided history. Mr. Wisterwhistle, growing
+confidential over his antecedents, says, "You see, sir, I wasn't brought
+up to the bath-chair business, so to speak, for I began in the Royal
+Navy, under His Majesty King William the Fourth. Then I took to the
+coastguard business, and having put by a matter of thirty pound odd, and
+hearing 'she' was in the market,"--Mr. Wisterwhistle always referred to
+his bath-chair as 'she,' evidently regarding it from the nautical
+stand-point as of the feminine gender,--"and knowing, saving your
+presence, sir, that old Bloxer, of whom I bought her, had such a good
+crop of cripples the last season or two, that he often touched
+two-and-forty shillings a week with 'em, I dropped Her Majesty's
+service, and took to this 'ere. But, Lor, sir, the business ain't wot it
+wos. Things is changed woeful at Torsington since I took her up. Then
+from 9 o'clock, as you might say, to 6 P.M., every hour was took up;
+and, mind you, by real downright 'aristocracy,'--real live noblemen,
+with gout on 'em, as thought nothink of a two hours' stretch, and didn't
+'aggle, savin' your presence, over a extra sixpence for the job either
+way. But, bless you, wot's it come to now? Why, she might as well lay up
+in a dry dock arf the week, for wot's come of the downright genuine
+invalid, savin' your presence, blow'd if I knows. One can see, of
+course, sir, in arf a jiffy, as you is touched in the legs with the
+rheumatics, or summat like it; but besides you and a old gent on
+crutches from Portland Buildings, there ain't no real invalid public
+'ere at all, and one can't expect to make a livin' out of you two; for
+if you mean to do the thing ever so 'ansome, it ain't reasonable to
+expect you and the old gent I was a referring to, to stand seven hours a
+day goin' up and down the Esplanade between you, and you see even that
+at a bob an hour ain't no great shakes when you come to pay for 'ousing
+her and keepin' her lookin' spic and span, with all her brass knobs a
+shining and her leather apron fresh polished with patent carriage
+blackin': and Lor, sir, you'd not b'lieve me if I was to tell you what a
+deal of show some parties expects for their one bob an hour. Why, it was
+only the other day that Lady Glumpley (a old party with a front of black
+curls and yaller bows in her bonnet, as I dare say you've noticed me a
+haulin' up and down the Parade when the band's a playin'), says to me,
+says she, 'It ain't so much the easygoin' of your chair, Mr.
+Wisterwhistle, as makes me patronise it, as its general genteel
+appearance. For there's many a chair at Brighton that can't hold a
+candle to it!'" But at this point he was interrupted by the appearance
+of a dense crowd that half filled the street, and drew up in silent
+expectation opposite my front door. Dear me, I had quite forgotten I had
+sent for him. But the boy who cleans the boots and knives has returned,
+and brought with him _the One Policeman_!
+
+[Illustration: INDIAMAN GOING INTO PORT]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+QUERY AT SOME FASHIONABLE SEASIDE RESORT.--Do the unpleasant odours
+noticeable at certain times arise from the fact of the tide being high?
+If so, is the tide sometimes higher than usual, as the--ahem!--odours
+certainly are?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PERIL!
+
+_Gruff Voice_ (_behind her--she thought she heard her own name_). "She's
+a gettin' old, Bill, and she sartain'y ain't no beauty! But you and I'll
+smarten her up! Give her a good tarrin' up to the waist, and a streak o'
+paint, and they 'ont know her again when the folks come down a'
+Whitsun'. Come along, and let's ketch 'old of her, and shove her into
+the water fust of all!!"
+
+_Miss Isabella._ "Oh! the horrid wretches! No policeman in sight!
+Nothing for it but flight!"
+
+    [Is off like a bird!
+
+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PREHISTORIC PEEPS
+
+There were even then quiet spots by the sea where one could be alone
+with Nature undisturbed]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A SENSE OF PROPERTY
+
+_Botanical Old Gent_ (_in the Brighton Gardens_). "Can you tell me, my
+good man, if this plant belongs to the 'Arbutus' family?"
+
+_Gardener_ (_curtly_). "No, sir, it doan't. It b'longs to the
+Corporation!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE MINOR ILLS OF LIFE
+
+Portrait of a gentleman attempting to regain his tent after the morning
+bath]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MERMAIDS' TOILETS IN '67
+
+_Blanche._ "I say, some of you, call after aunty! She has taken my
+_chignon_, and left me her horrid black one!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LOW TIDE ON SCARBOROUGH SANDS--BATHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
+
+The captain, who is well up in his classics, translates, for his Fanny's
+benefit, a celebrated Latin poem (by one Lucretius) to the effect that
+it is sweet to gaze from the cliff at the bathing machines vainly
+struggling to take the unfortunate bathers into deep water.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SEASIDE PUZZLE
+
+To find your bathing-machine if you've forgotten the number]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: VENUS (ANNO DOMINI 1892) RISES FROM THE SEA!!]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SEASIDE DRAMA.--_Mrs. de Tomkyns_ (_sotto voce, to Mr. de T._).
+"Ludovic, dear, there's Algernon playing with a strange child! _Do_
+prevent it!"
+
+_Mr. de T._ (_ditto, to Mrs. de T._). "How on earth am I to prevent it,
+my love?"
+
+_Mrs. de T._ "Tell its parents Algernon is just recovering from scarlet
+fever, or something!"
+
+_Mr. de T._ "But it isn't true!"
+
+_Mrs. de T._ "Oh, never mind! Tell them, all the same!"
+
+_Mr. de T._ (_aloud_). "Ahem! Sir, you'd better not let your little girl
+play with my little boy. He's only just recovering from--er--_Scarlet
+Fever_!"
+
+_Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins_ (_together_). "It's all right, sir!--_so's our
+little gal!_"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MIXED BATHING
+
+_Fussy Landlady_ (_to new Lodger_). "Well, sir, if you'll only tell me
+when you want a bath, _I'll see you have it_."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BY THE SEASIDE
+
+(_A Gasp and a Growl from Paterfamilias Fogey_)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    In for it here,
+      Six weeks or more,
+    Once every year
+      (Yah, what a bore!)
+    Daughters and wife
+      Force me to bide
+    Mad to "see life"
+      By the seaside!
+
+    Go out of town
+      What if we do?
+    Hither comes down
+      All the world too;
+    Vanity Fair,
+      Fashion and Pride,
+    Seeking fresh air
+      By the seaside.
+
+    Drest up all hands--
+      Raiment how dear!--
+    Down on the sands,
+      Out on the Pier,
+    Pace to and fro,
+      See, as at Ryde,
+    Off how they show
+      By the seaside!
+
+    Fops and fine girls,
+      Swarm, brisk as bees;
+    Ribbons and curls
+      Float on the breeze;
+    Females and males
+      Eye and are eyed;
+    Ogling prevails
+      By the seaside!
+
+    Daughters may see
+      Some fun in that.
+    Wife, how can she,
+      Grown old and fat?
+    Scene I survey
+      But to deride,
+    Idle display
+      By the seaside.
+
+    Views within reach,
+      Picturesque scenes,
+    Rocks on the beach,
+      Bathing machines,
+    Shingle and pools,
+      Left by the tide,
+    Youth, far from schools,
+      By the seaside.
+
+    Artists may sketch,
+      Draw and design,
+    Pencil, or etch;
+      Not in my line.
+    Money, no end,
+      Whilst I am tied
+    Here, I must spend,
+      By the seaside!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Snooks_ (_to new acquaintance_). "Tell yer what, look in
+one evenin' and 'ave a bit of supper, if you don't mind 'avin it in the
+kitchen. Yer see, we're plain people, and don't put on no side. Of
+course, I know as a toff like you 'ud 'ave it in the _drawing-room_!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: TORQUAY (TALKEY)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: HASTINGS]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: GENTILITY IN GREENS
+
+_Mrs. Brown finds Sandymouth a very different place from what she
+remembers it years ago._
+
+_Greengrocer._ "Cabbage, mum!? We don't keep no second-class vegetables,
+mum. You'll get it at the lower end o' the town!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SEASIDE VIEWS
+
+[Illustration: KINGSWEAR]
+
+_Tom Jones_ (_in love_). The most heavenly place I ever was in. The sun
+is warmer, the sky bluer, the sea the calmest I ever knew. Joy sparkles
+on every pebble; Art spreads its welcome arms through every spray of
+seaweed. True happiness encircles me on every breeze, and Beauty is by
+my side.
+
+_Old Jones._ Beastly slow. All sea and sky, and ugly round stones. You
+can't bask in the sun because there is none--it's always raining--and
+because the flints worry your back. Confound the children, scraping up
+the wet sand and smelling seaweeds! It must be time for them to go to
+bed or to lessons or something. Wherever you sit there is sure to be a
+draught, and such heaps of old women you can't put your legs up on the
+seat. Hang it all, there isn't a young girl in the place, let alone
+pretty ones.
+
+[Illustration: O-SHUN SHELLS!]
+
+_Young Brown_ (_waiting for a Commission_). Awfully dull. Quite too
+excessively detestable. Not a fellow to talk to, you know, who knows
+anything about the Leger, or draw-poker, or modern education, you know.
+Can't get introduced to Lady Tom Peeper. Nobody to do it. Wish my
+moustache would curl. Pull it all day, you know, but it won't come. Lady
+Tom smiled, on the Parade to-day. Got very red, but I shall smile too
+to-morrow. A man must do something in this dreadful place.
+
+_Major Brown_ (_Heavies_). Not half bad kind of diggings. Quite in
+clover. Found Lydia here--I mean Lady Tom Peeper. Horribly satirical
+woman, though. Keeps one up to the mark. I shall have to read up to keep
+pace with her. I shouldn't like to be chaffed by her. Better friend than
+enemy. Poor Tom Peeper! he must have a bad time of it! Can't say "Bo"
+to a gosling. And she knows it. That's why he never comes down here.
+Coast clear. Fancy she's rather sweet on me. By Jove! we had a
+forty-mile-an-hour-express flirtation before her marriage! Must take
+care what I'm about now. Mustn't have a collision with Tom--good old
+man, after all, if he is a fool. Take this note round, Charles, to the
+same place.
+
+[Illustration: A CUTTER ON THE BEECH]
+
+_Mrs. Robinson_ (_Materfamilias_). Scarcely room to swing a cot, for
+baby. Thank goodness, all the children are on the beach. I hope Mary Ann
+won't let out to the other nurses that Totty had the scarlet fever. He's
+quite well now, poor little man, and no one will be any the worse for
+it. Horrid! of course. No, it is not a Colorado beetle, Robinson. They
+infest the curtains; we did not bring them with us in our trunks. Do go
+out and buy some insect-powder, instead of looking stupid behind that
+nasty cigar. Oh, and get some soap and some tooth-powder, and order
+baby's tonic, and Jane's iron--mind, sesqui-sulphate of iron (I suppose
+I must find the prescription), and a box of--what's that stuff for sore
+throats? And do hire a perambulator with a hood. And we have no dessert
+for to-morrow--you know, or you ought to know, it's Sunday. Some fruit,
+and what you like. Oh! and don't forget some biscuits for the dog. What
+has become of Tiny? Tiny! Tiny! I know he did not go with the children.
+I dare say he has eaten something horrid, and is dying under a chair.
+Dear! dear! who would be mother of a family with such a careless,
+thoughtless, quite too utterly selfish husband as you are. Of course you
+never remembered to-day was my birthday. I ought never to have been
+born. A bracelet or a pair of ear-rings--or, by the way, I saw a lovely
+chatelaine on the Parade. You might find enough to give me one pleasure
+since our wedding.
+
+_Robinson_ (_Paterfamilias_). I like the seaside, I do. When will it be
+over?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A SANDY COVE]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A FRAGMENT
+
+    Augustus knows a certain snug retreat--
+    A little rocky cavern by the sea--
+    Where, sheltered from the rain (and every eye),
+    He fondly hopes to breathe his tale of love
+    Into his artless Arabella's ear!...]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LONGING FOR A NEW SENSATION
+
+_Jack_ (_a naughty boy, who is always in disgrace, and most
+deservedly_). "I say, Effie, do you know what I should like? I should
+like to be accused of something I'd never done!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A LAMENT
+
+_Dowager._ "It's been the worst season I can remember, Sir James! All
+the men seem to have got married, and none of the girls!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: JOYS OF THE SEASIDE
+
+_Brown._ "What beastly weather! And the glass is going steadily down!"
+
+_Local Tradesman._ "Oh, that's nothing, sir. The glass has no effect
+whatever on _our_ part of the coast!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BETTER THE DAY, THE BETTER THE TALK!
+
+[Illustration: BROAD-STARES]
+
+SCENE--_Any fashionable Watering-place where "Church Parade" is a
+recognised institution._
+
+TIME--_Sunday_, 1 P.M. _Enter_ Brown _and_ Mrs. Brown, _who take
+chairs_.
+
+_Mrs. Brown._ Good gracious! Look another way! Those odious people, the
+Stiggingses, are coming towards us!
+
+_Brown._ Why odious? I think the girls rather nice.
+
+_Mrs. B._ (_contemptuously_). Oh, _you_ would, because men are so easily
+taken in! Nice, indeed! Why, here's Major Buttons.
+
+_B._ (_moving his head sharply to the right_). Don't see him! Can't
+stand the fellow! I always avoid him at the Club!
+
+_Mrs. B._ Why? Soldiers are always such pleasant men.
+
+_B._ (_contemptuously_). Buttons a soldier! Years ago he was a
+Lieutenant in a marching regiment, and now holds honorary rank in the
+Volunteers! Soldier, indeed! Bless me! here's Mrs. Fitz-Flummery--mind
+you don't cut her.
+
+_Mrs. B._ Yes, I shall; the woman is unsupportable. Did you ever see
+_such_ a dress. And she has changed the colour of her hair--again!
+
+_B._ Whether she has or hasn't, she looks particularly pleasing.
+
+_Mrs. B._ (_drily_). You were always a little eccentric in your taste!
+Why, surely there must be Mr. Pennyfather Robson. How smart he looks!
+Where _can_ he have come from?
+
+_B._ The Bankruptcy Court! (_Drily._) You were never particularly famous
+for discrimination. As I live, the Plantagenet Smiths!
+
+    [_He bows with effusion._
+
+_Mrs. B._ And the Stuart Joneses. (_She kisses her hand gushingly_). By
+the way, dear, didn't you say that the Plantagenet Smiths were suspected
+of murdering their uncle before they inherited his property?
+
+_B._ So it is reported, darling. And didn't you tell me, my own, that
+the parents of Mr. Stuart Jones were convicts before they became
+millionaires?
+
+_Mrs. B._ So I have heard, loved one. (_Starting up._) Come, Charley, we
+must be off at once! The Goldharts! If they catch us, _she_ is sure to
+ask me to visit some of her sick poor!
+
+_B._ And _he_ to beg me to subscribe to an orphanage or a hospital!
+Here, take your prayer-book, or people won't know that we have come from
+church!
+
+    [_Exeunt hurriedly._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ROW ME O!]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: CURLEW]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT SCARBOROUGH.--_Miss Araminta Dove._ Why do they call this the Spa?
+
+_Mr. Rhino-Ceros._ Oh! I believe the place was once devoted to boxing
+exhibitions.
+
+    [_Miss A.D. as wise as ever._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "BY THE SAD SEA WAVES"
+
+_Landlady_ (_who has just presented her weekly bill_). "I 'ope, ma'am,
+as you find the bracing hair agree with you, ma'am, and your good
+gentleman, ma'am!"
+
+_Lady._ "Oh, yes, our appetites are wonderfully improved! For instance,
+at home we only eat two loaves a day, and I find, from your account,
+that we can manage eight!"
+
+    [_Landlady feels uncomfortable._
+
+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: RATHER DIFFICULT
+
+"Oh, I say, here comes that dismal bore, Bulkley! Let's pretend _we
+don't see him_!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PESSIMISM
+
+_Artist_ (_irritated by the preliminaries of composition and the too
+close proximity of an uninteresting native_). "I think you needn't wait
+any longer. There's really nothing to look at just now."
+
+_Native._ "Ay, an' I doot there'll _never_ be muckle to look at there!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE DONKEY-BOYS OF ENGLAND
+
+(_A Song for the Seaside_)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    The Donkey-Boys of England, how merrily they fly,
+    With pleasant chaff upon the tongue and cunning in the eye.
+    And oh! the donkeys in a mass how patiently they stand,
+    High on the heath of Hampstead, or down on Ramsgate's sand.
+
+    The Donkey-Boys of England, how sternly they reprove
+    The brute that won't "come over", with an impressive shove;
+    And oh! the eel-like animals, how gracefully they swerve
+    From side to side, but won't advance to spoil true beauty's curve.
+
+    The Donkey-Boys of England, how manfully they fight,
+    When a probable donkestrian comes suddenly in sight;
+    From nurse's arms the babies are clutch'd with fury wild,
+    And on a donkey carried off the mother sees her child.
+
+    The Donkey-Boys of England, how sternly they defy
+    The pleadings of a parent's shriek, the infant's piercing cry;
+    As a four-year-old MAZEPPA is hurried from the spot,
+    Exposed to all the tortures of a donkey's fitful trot.
+
+    The Donkey-Boys of England, how lustily they scream,
+    When they strive to keep together their donkeys in a team;
+    And the riders who are anxious to be class'd among genteels,
+    Have a crowd of ragged Donkey-boys "hallooing" at their heels.
+
+    The Donkey-Boys of England, how well they comprehend
+    The animal to whom they act as master, guide, and friend;
+    The understanding that exists between them who'll dispute--
+    Or that the larger share of it falls sometimes to the brute?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE JETTY]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SEASIDE ACQUAINTANCES (SCENE--The Shady Side of Pall Mall).--_Snob._ My
+Lord, you seem to forget me. Don't you recollect our meeting this summer
+at Harrogate?
+
+_Swell._ My dear fellow, I do not forget it in the least. I recollect
+vividly we swore eternal friendship at Harrogate, and should it be my
+fate to meet you at Harrogate next year, I shall only be too happy to
+swear it again.
+
+    [_Lifts his chapeau, and leaves Snob in a state of the most speechless
+    amazement._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: Portrait of a gentleman who sent his wife and family to
+the seaside, followed by a later train, and left their address behind.
+
+    [_Sketched after five hours' futile search for them._
+
+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A VOICE FROM THE SEA
+
+"O let me kiss him for his mother!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+REASONS FOR GOING TO BRIGHTON
+
+(_By the Cynic who stays in London_)
+
+[Illustration: "HA! RICH!"]
+
+Because "everybody" is there, and it is consequently so pleasant to see
+St. John's Wood, Bayswater, and even Belgravia, so well represented on
+the Esplanade.
+
+Because the shops in the King's Road are _nearly_ as good as those to be
+found in Regent Street.
+
+Because the sea does not _always_ look like the Thames at Greenwich in a
+fog.
+
+Because some of the perambulating bands play very nearly in tune.
+
+Because the Drive from the Aquarium to the New Pier is quite a mile in
+length, and only grows monotonous after the tenth turn.
+
+Because watching fish confined in tanks is such rollicking fun.
+
+Because the Hebrews are so numerously represented on the Green.
+
+Because the Clubs are so inexpensive and select.
+
+Because the management of the Grand is so very admirable.
+
+Because it is so pleasant to follow the Harriers on a hired hack in
+company with other hired hacks.
+
+Because the half-deserted Skating Rinks are so very amusing.
+
+Because it is so nice to hear second-rate scandal about third-rate
+people.
+
+Because the place is not always being visited by the scarlet fever.
+
+Because it is so cheerful to see the poor invalids taking their morning
+airing in their bath-chairs.
+
+Because the streets are paraded by so many young gentlemen from the
+City.
+
+Because the Brighton belles look so ladylike in their quiet Ulsters and
+unpretending hats.
+
+Because the suburbs are so very cheerful in the winter, particularly
+when it snows or rains.
+
+Because on every holiday the Railway Company brings down such a very
+nice assortment of excursionists to fill the streets.
+
+Because Brighton in November is so very like Margate in July.
+
+Because, if you did not visit Brighton, you might so very easily go
+farther and fare worse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WESTON-SUPER-MARE]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SCENE--BY THE SAD SEA WAVES
+
+_Tomkins, disconsolate on a rock, traces some characters upon the sand._
+_To him, Mrs. Tomkins_ (_whose name is Martha_).
+
+_Mrs. T._ "Well, Mr. Tomkins, and pray who may Henrietta be?"
+
+    [_Tomkins utters a yell of despair, and falls prostrate._
+
+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A VIKING ON MODERN FASHION
+
+"What does t'lass want wi' yon _boostle_ for? It aren't big enough to
+_smoggle_ things, and she can't _steer_ herself wi' it!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE TRIPPER
+
+(_By a Resident_)
+
+    What does he come for?
+      What does he want?
+    Why does he wander thus
+      Careworn and gaunt?
+    Up street and down street with
+      Dull vacant stare,
+    Hither and thither, it
+      Don't matter where?
+
+    What does he mean by it?
+      Why does he come
+    Hundreds of miles to prowl,
+      Weary and glum,
+    Blinking at Kosmos with
+      Lack-lustre eye?
+    He doesn't enjoy it, he
+      Don't even try!
+
+    Sunny or soaking, it's
+      All one to him,
+    Wandering painfully--
+      Curious whim!
+    Gazing at china-shops.
+      Gaping at sea,
+    Guzzling at beer-shops, or
+      Gorging at tea.
+
+    Why don't he stay at home,
+      Save his train fare,
+    Soak at his native beer,
+      Sunday clothes wear?
+    No one would grudge it him,
+      No one would jeer.
+    Why does he come away?
+      Why is he here?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: BLACKPOOL]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: BRIGHTON]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: MARGATE]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING
+
+_Landlady._ "I hope you slept well, sir?"
+
+_New Boarder._ "No, I didn't. I've been troubled with insomnia."
+
+_Landlady._ "Look here, young man. I'll give you a sovereign for every
+one you find in that bed!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: TOUCHING APPEAL
+
+_Testy Old Gent._ (_wearied by the importunities of the Brighton
+boatmen_). "Confound it, man! Do I _look_ as if I wanted a boat?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ROBERT AT THE SEASIDE
+
+I've bin spending my long Wacation of a fortnite at Northgate.
+
+Northgate's a nice quiet place, Northgate is, tho' it quite fails in
+most things that constitoots reel injoyment at the seaside, such as
+Bands and Niggers and Minstrels and all that.
+
+It's a grand place for weather, for it generally blows hard at
+Northgate, and wen it doesn't blow hard it rains hard, which makes a
+nice change, and a change is wot we all goes to the seaside for.
+
+It seems a werry favrite place for inwaleeds, for the place is full on
+'em, Bath cheers is in great demand and all the seats on the Prade is
+allus occypied by 'em.
+
+Dr. Scratchem too sends most of his favrite cases there, and you can't
+walk on the Peer without facing lots on 'em.
+
+Brown says the place makes him as sollem as a Common Cryer, and he
+hasn't had a good hearty larf since he came here, but then Brown isn't
+quite sattisfied with his Lodgings, and has acshally recommended his
+Land Lady to turn her house into the Norfolk Howard Hotel, _Unlimited_,
+so perhaps she may account for his want of spirits. Northgate's rather a
+rum place as regards the tide. Wen it's eye it comes all over the place
+and makes such a jolly mess, and wen it's low it runs right out to sea
+and you can't see it. Brown tried to persuade me as how as one werry eye
+tide was a spring tide, but as it was in September I wasn't so green as
+to beleeve that rubbish.
+
+It seems quite a pet place for Artists, I mean Sculpchers, at least I
+s'pose they must be Sculpchers, and that they brings their Moddels with
+'em, for the Bathing Machines is stuck close to the Peer, so dreckly
+after breakfast the Moddels goes and bathes in the Sea, and the
+Sculpchers goes on the Peer, and there's nothink to divert their
+attention from their interesting studdys, and many on 'em passes ours
+there quietly meditating among the Bathing Machines.
+
+Brown says, in his sarcastic way, it's the poor Sculpchers as comes
+here, who can't afford to pay for their Moddels, so they comes here and
+gets 'em free gratis for nothink.
+
+There's sum werry nice walks in the nayberhood but I never walks 'em,
+for it seems to me that the grate joke of every Buysicler and Trysicler,
+and the place swarms with 'em, is to cum quietly behind you and see how
+close he can go by you without nocking you down. I'm sure the jumps
+and the starts and the frites as I had the fust day or too kep my Art in
+my mouth till I thort it would have choked me.
+
+How Ladys, reel Ladys too, can expose theirselves on such things I can't
+make out. I herd a young Swell say that wot with them and what with the
+Bathing Moddels it was as good as a Burlesk!
+
+We've got werry cumferrabel Lodgings, we have, just opposite the Gas
+Works and near a Brick Field. When the wind is South or West we smells
+the bricks and when its East we smells the Gas, but when its doo North
+we don't smell nuffen excep just a trifle from the Dranes, and so long
+as we keeps quite at the end of the werry long Peer we don't smell
+nuffen at all excep the sea weed.
+
+Our Landlord's a werry respeckabel man and the Stoker on our little
+Railway, and so werry fond of nussing our little children that they are
+allus as black as young Sweeps. Their gratest treat is to go with him to
+the Stashun and stand on the ingin when they are shuntin, so preshus
+little they gits of the sea breezes.
+
+We've had a fust rate Company staying here. I've seen no less than 2
+Aldermen, and 1 Warden of a City Compny, but they didn't stay long. I
+don't think the living was good enuff for 'em. It must be a werry trying
+change, from every luxery that isn't in season, to meer beef and mutton
+and shrimps! and those rayther course.
+
+I think our Boatmen is about the lazyest set of fellows as ever I seed.
+So far from begging on you to have a soft Roe with the Tide, or a hard
+Roe against it, they makes all sorts of egscewses for not taking you,
+says they're just a going to dinner, or they thinks the wind's a
+gitting up, or there ain't enough water!
+
+Not enuff water in the Sea to flote a Bote! wen any one could see as
+there was thousands of galluns there.
+
+I saw some on 'em this mornin bringin in sum fish, and asked the price
+of a pair of Souls, but they axshally said they didn't dare sell one,
+for every man Jack of 'em must be sent to Billingsgate! but werry likely
+sum on 'em might be sent back again in the arternoon, and then I could
+get some at the Fishmonger's!
+
+What a nice derangemunt!
+
+There was the butiful fresh fish reddy for eating, there was me and my
+family reddy to eat 'em, but no, they must be packed in boxes and
+carried to the Station and then sent by Rale to London, and then sent by
+Wan to Billingsgate, and that takes I'm told ever so many hours, and
+then carried back to the London Stashun, and then sent by Rale to
+Northgate, and then carried from the Stashun to the Fishmonger's, and
+then I'm allowed to buy 'em!
+
+Well if that isn't a butiful business like arrangement, my Lord Mare, I
+should like to know what is.
+
+However, as I wunce herd a Deputy say, when things cums to their wust,
+things is sure to mend, and I don't think that things can be much wusser
+than that.
+
+  (_Signed_) ROBERT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: LIGHT PUFFS RAISED A LITTLE SWELL]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: HEAVY SWELL ON THE BAR]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE BELL BUOY]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SPIRIT OF THE THING.--_Landlady_ (_to shivering lodger_). No, sir, I
+don't object to your dining at a restorong, nor to your taking an
+'apenny paper, but I must resent your constant 'abit of locking up your
+whiskey, thereby himplying that me, a clergyman's daughter, is prone to
+larceny.
+
+    [_Lodger immediately hands her the key as a guarantee of good faith._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE BORES OF THE BEACH
+
+So! as it's a fine day, you'll sit on the beach and read the paper
+comfortably, will you? Very good! Then we recommend you to get what
+guinea-pigs, brandy-balls, boats, and children's socks, to say nothing
+of shell-workboxes, lace collars, and the like you may want, before you
+settle down.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "Excuse me, sir. I seem to have met you before. Are you
+not a relative of Mr. Dan Briggs?"
+
+"No, madam. I _am_ Mr. Dan Briggs himself."
+
+"Ah, then that explains the remarkable resemblance!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: ACCOMMODATING
+
+_Lodger._ "And then, there's that cold pheasant, Mrs. Bilkes"----
+
+_Landlady._ "Yes'm, and if you should have enough without it, lor', Mr.
+Bilkes wouldn't mind a eatin' of it for his supper, if that's all."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Mrs. Brown._ "Might I ask how much you gave that
+nigger?"
+
+_Mr. Brown_ (_first day down_). "Sixpence."
+
+_Mrs. B._ "Oh, indeed! Perhaps, sir, you are not aware that your wife
+and family have listened to those same niggers for the last ten days for
+a _penny_!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: PLEASURES OF THE SEASIDE
+
+_Mermaiden._ "I am told you keep a circulating library?"
+
+_Librarian._ "Yes, miss. _There_ it is! Subscription, two shillings
+a-week; one volume at a time; change as often as you please! Would you
+like to see a catalogue?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: AN INFORMAL INTRODUCTION
+
+_Polite Little Girl_ (_suddenly_). "This is my mamma, sir. Will you
+please sing her, 'It's the seasoning wot does it!'"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: OUT OF TOWN (UNFASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE)
+
+_Visitor._ "What a roaring trade the hotels will be doing, with all
+these holiday folk!"
+
+_Head waiter at The George._ "Lor bless yer, sir, no! They all bring
+their nosebags with 'em!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: SEASIDE STUDIES
+
+_Wandering Minstrel._ "Gurls! I'm a doocid fine cha-appie!" &c., &c.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: Wiggles and Sprott prefer bathing from the beach to
+having a stuffy machine. They are much pleased with the delicate little
+attention indicated above!]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A QUIET DRIVE BY THE SEA
+
+A Brighton bath-chairman's idea of a suitable route for an invalid lady]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A SEASIDE ROUNDEL
+
+    On the sands as loitering I stand
+      Where my point of view the scene commands,
+    I survey the prospect fair and grand
+                      On the sands.
+
+    Niggers, half a dozen German bands,
+      Photographic touts, persistent, bland,
+    Chiromancers reading dirty hands,
+
+    Nursemaids, children, preachers, skiffs that land
+      Trippers with cigars of fearful brands,
+    Donkeys--everything, in short, but sand--
+                      On the sands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE LETTER BUT NOT THE SPIRIT
+
+Old Mr. de Cramwell, being bilious and out of sorts, is ordered to go to
+the sea, and take plenty of exercise in the open air. (He begins at
+once.)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COMMON OBJECTS OF THE SEASHORE.
+
+[Illustration: TAKING A ROW]
+
+The "disguised minstrel", believed by the public to be a peer of the
+realm collecting coin for a charity, but who is in reality the
+sentimental singer from a perambulating troop of nigger banjoists,
+"working on his own."
+
+The preacher whose appreciation of the value of logic and the aspirate
+is on a par.
+
+The intensely military young man whose occupation during eleven months
+in the year is the keeping of ledgers in a small city office.
+
+The artist who guarantees a pleasing group of lovers for sixpence, frame
+included.
+
+The band that consists of a cornet, a trombone, a clarionet, some bass,
+and a big drum, which is quite as effective (thanks to the trombone)
+when all the principals have deserted in search of coppers.
+
+And last (and commonest of all) the cockney who, after a week's
+experience of the discomforts of the seaside, is weary of them, and
+wants to go home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A WINDY CORNER AT BRIGHTON
+
+(_By an Impressionist_)
+
+    Old lady first, with hair like winter snows,
+                            Makes moan.
+    And struggles. Then, with cheeks too richly rose,
+                            A crone,
+    Gold hair, new teeth, white powder on her nose;
+                            All bone
+    And skin; an "Ancient Mystery", like those
+                            Of Hone.
+    Then comes a girl; sweet face that freshly glows!
+                            Well grown.
+    The neat cloth gown her supple figure shows
+                            Now thrown
+    In lines of beauty. Last, in graceless pose,
+                            Half prone,
+    A luckless lout, caught by the blast, one knows
+                            His tone
+    Means oaths; his hat, straight as fly crows,
+                            Has flown.
+    I laugh at him, and----Hi! By Jove, there goes
+                            My own!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ON THE SANDS
+
+(_A Sketch at Margate_)
+
+     _Close under the Parade wall a large circle has been formed,
+     consisting chiefly of Women on chairs and camp-stools, with an
+     inner ring of small Children, who are all patiently awaiting the
+     arrival of a troupe of Niggers. At the head of one of the flights
+     of steps leading up to the Parade, a small and shrewish Child-nurse
+     is endeavouring to detect and recapture a pair of prodigal younger
+     Brothers, who have given her the slip._
+
+_Sarah_ (_to herself_). Wherever can them two plegs have got to?
+(_Aloud; drawing a bow at a venture._) Albert! 'Enery! Come up 'ere this
+minnit. _I_ see yer!
+
+_'Enery_ (_under the steps--to Albert_). I say--d'ye think she
+_do_?--'cos if----
+
+_Albert._ Not she! Set tight.
+
+    [_They sit tight._
+
+_Sarah_ (_as before_). 'Enery! Albert! You've bin and 'alf killed little
+Georgie between yer!
+
+_'Enery_ (_moved, to Albert_). Did you 'ear that, Bert? It wasn't _me_
+upset him--was it now?
+
+_Albert_ (_impenitent_). 'Oo cares? The Niggers'll be back direckly.
+
+_Sarah._ Al-bert! 'Enery! Your father's bin down 'ere once after you.
+You'll _ketch_ it!
+
+_Albert_ (_sotto voce_). Not till father ketches _us_, we shan't. Keep
+still, 'Enery--we're all right under 'ere!
+
+_Sarah_ (_more diplomatically_). 'Enery! Albert! Father's bin and left a
+'ap'ny apiece for yer. Ain't yer comin' up for it? If yer don't want it,
+why, stay where you are, that's all!
+
+_Albert_ (_to 'Enery_). I _knoo_ we 'adn't done nothin'. An' I'm goin'
+up to git that 'ap'ny, I am.
+
+_'Enery._ So 'm I.
+
+    [_They emerge, and ascend the steps--to be pounced upon immediately by
+    the ingenious Sarah._
+
+_Sarah._ 'Ap'ny, indeed! You won't git no 'apence _'ere_, I can tell
+yer--so jest you come along 'ome with me!
+
+    [_Exeunt Albert and 'Enery, in captivity, as the Niggers enter the
+    circle._
+
+_Bones._ We shall commence this afternoon by 'olding our Grand Annual
+Weekly Singing Competition, for the Discouragement of Youthful Talent.
+Now then, which is the little gal to step out first and git a medal?
+(_The Children giggle, but remain seated._) Not one? Now I arsk
+_you_--What _is_ the use o' me comin' 'ere throwin' away thousands and
+thousands of pounds on golden medals, if you won't take the trouble to
+stand up and sing for them? Oh, you'll make me so wild, I shall begin
+spittin' 'alf-sovereigns directly--I _know_ I shall! (_A little Girl in
+a sun-bonnet comes forward._) Ah, 'ere's a young lady who's bustin' with
+melody, _I_ can see. Your name, my dear? Ladies and Gentlemen, I have
+the pleasure to announce that Miss Connie Cockle will now appear. Don't
+curtsey till the Orchestra gives the chord. (_Chord from the
+harmonium--the Child advances, and curtsies with much aplomb._) Oh, lor!
+call _that_ a curtsey--that's a _cramp_, that is! Do it all over again!
+(_The Child obeys, disconcerted._) That's _worse_! I can see the s'rimps
+blushin' for yer inside their paper bags! Now see Me do it. (_Bones
+executes a caricature of a curtsey, which the little Girl copies with
+terrible fidelity._) That's _ladylike_--that's genteel. Now sing _out_!
+(_The Child sings the first verse of a popular music-hall song, in a
+squeaky little voice._) Talk about nightingales! Come 'ere, and receive
+the reward for extinguished incapacity. On your knees! (_The little Girl
+kneels before him while a tin medal is fastened upon her frock._) Rise,
+Sir Connie Cockle! Oh, you _lucky_ girl!
+
+     [_The Child returns, swelling with triumph, to her companions,
+     several of whom come out, and go through the same performance, with
+     more or less squeakiness and self-possession._
+
+_First Admiring Matron_ (_in audience_). I do like to see the children
+kep' out o' mischief like this, instead o' goin' paddling and messing
+about the sands!
+
+_Second Ad. Mat._ Just what _I_ say, my dear--they're amused and
+edjucated 'ow to beyave at the same time!
+
+_First Politician_ (_with the "Standard"_). No, but look here--when
+Gladstone was asked in the House whether he proposed to give the Dublin
+Parliament the control of the police, what was his answer. Why....
+
+_The Niggers_ (_striking up chorus_). "'Rum-tumty diddly-umty
+doodah-dey! Rum-tumty-diddly-um was all that he could
+say. And the Members and the Speaker joined together
+in the lay. Of 'Rum-tumty-diddly-umty doodah-dey!'"
+
+_Second Pol._ (_with the "Star"_). Well, and what more would you have
+_'ad_ him say? Come, now!
+
+_Alf_ (_who has had quite enough ale at dinner--to his fiancee_). These
+Niggers ain't up to much Loo. Can't sing for _nuts_!
+
+_Chorley_ (_his friend, perfidiously_). You'd better go in and show 'em
+how, old man. Me and Miss Serge'll stay and see you take the shine out
+of 'em!
+
+_Alf._ P'raps you think I can't. But, if I was to go upon the 'Alls now,
+I should make my fortune in no time! Loo's 'eard me when I've been in
+form, and she'll tell you----
+
+_Miss Serge._ Well, I will say there's
+many a professional might learn a lesson from Alf--whether Mr. Perkins
+believes it or not.
+
+    [_Cuttingly, to "Chorley"._
+
+_Chorley._ Now reelly, Miss Loo, don't come down on a feller like that.
+I want to see him do you credit, that's all, and he couldn't 'ave a
+better opportunity to distinguish himself--now _could_ he?
+
+_Miss Serge._ _I'm_ not preventing him. But I don't know--these Niggers
+keep themselves very select, and they might object to it.
+
+_Alf._ I'll soon square _them_. You keep your eye on me, and I'll make
+things a bit livelier!
+
+    [_He enters the circle._
+
+_Miss Serge_ (_admiringly_). He has got a cheek, I must say! Look at
+him, dancing there along with those two Niggers--they don't hardly know
+what to make of him yet!
+
+_Chorley._ Do you notice how they keep kicking him beyind on the sly
+like? I wonder he puts up with it!
+
+_Miss S._ He'll be even with them presently--you see if he isn't.
+
+     [_Alf attempts to twirl a tambourine on his finger, and lets it
+     fall; derision from audience; Bones pats him on the head and takes
+     the tambourine away--at which Alf only smiles feebly._
+
+_Chorley._ It's a pity he gets so 'ot dancing, and he don't seem to keep
+in step with the others.
+
+_Miss S._ (_secretly disappointed_). He isn't used to doing the
+double-shuffle on sand, that's all.
+
+_The Conductor._ Bones, I observe we have a recent addition to our
+company. Perhaps he'll favour us with a solo. (_Aside to Bones._) 'Oo
+_is_ he? 'Oo let him in 'ere--_you_?
+
+_Bones._ _I_ dunno. I thought _you_ did. Ain't he stood nothing?
+
+_Conductor._ Not a brass farden!
+
+_Bones_ (_outraged_). All right, you leave him to me. (_To Alf._) Kin it
+be? That necktie! them familiar coat-buttons! that paper-dicky! You
+are--you _are_ my long-lost convick son, 'ome from Portland! Come to
+these legs! (_He embraces Alf, and smothers him with kisses._) Oh,
+you've been and rubbed off some of your cheek on my complexion--you
+_dirty_ boy! (_He playfully "bashes" Alf's hat in._) Now show the
+comp'ny how pretty you can sing. (_Alf attempts a music-hall ditty, in
+which he, not unnaturally, breaks down._) It ain't my son's fault,
+Ladies and Gentlemen, it's all this little gal in front here, lookin' at
+him and makin' him shy! (_To a small Child, severely._) You oughter know
+_worse_, you ought! (_Clumps of seaweed and paper-balls are thrown at
+Alf who by this time is looking deplorably warm and foolish._) Oh, what
+a popilar fav'rite he is, to be sure!
+
+_Chorley_ (_to Miss S._). Poor fellow, he ain't no match for those
+Niggers--not like he is now! Hadn't I better go to the rescue, Miss Loo?
+
+_Miss S._ (_pettishly_). I'm sure I don't care _what_ you do.
+
+    [_"Chorley" succeeds, after some persuasion, in removing the
+    unfortunate Alf._
+
+_Alf_ (_rejoining his fiancee with a grimy face, a smashed hat, and a
+pathetic attempt at a grin_). Well? I _done_ it, you see!
+
+_Miss S._ (_crushingly_). Yes, you _have_ done it! And the best thing
+you can do now, is to go home and wash your face. _I_ don't care to be
+seen about with a _laughing-stock_, I can assure you! I've had my
+dignity lowered quite enough as it is!
+
+_Alf._ But look 'ere, my dear girl, I can't leave you here all by
+yourself you know!
+
+_Miss S._ I dare say Mr. Perkins will take care of me.
+
+    [_Mr. P. assents, with effusion._
+
+_Alf_ (_watching them move away--with bitterness_). I wish all Niggers
+were put down by Act of Parliament, I do! Downright noosances--that's
+what _they_ are!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: STOPPING AT A WATERING PLACE]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: EAST-BORN]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: WEST-BORN]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: TAKING IN SAIL]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DELAYS ARE DANGEROUS.--_Young Housekeeper._ "I'm afraid those soles I
+bought of you yesterday were not fresh. My husband said they were not
+nice at all!"
+
+_Brighton Fisherman._ "Well, marm, that be your fault--it bean't mine.
+I've offered 'em yer every day this week, and you might a' 'ad 'em o'
+Monday if you'd a loiked!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AT MARGATE.--_Angelina_ (_very poetical, surveying the rolling ocean_).
+"Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink."
+
+_Edwin_ (_very practical_). No drink! Now, hang it all, Angy, if I've
+asked you once I've asked you three times within the last five minutes
+to come and do a split soda and whiskey! And _I_ can do with it!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST DAY AT THE SEASIDE--PACKING UP
+
+_Maid_ (_to Paterfamilias_). "Please, sir, missus say you're to come in,
+and sit on the boxes; because we can't get 'em to, and they wants to be
+corded."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _The General._ "And what are you going to be when you
+grow up, young man?"
+
+_Bobbie._ "Well, I can't quite make up my mind. I don't know which would
+be nicest--a soldier, like you, or a sailor, like Mr. Smithers."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "THEM ARTISES!"
+
+_Lady Artist._ "Do you belong to that ship over there?"
+
+_Sailor._ "Yes, miss."
+
+_Lady Artist._ "Then would you mind loosening all those ropes? They are
+much too tight, and, besides, I can't draw straight lines!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: THE DISORDER OF THE BATH]
+
+How Belinda Brown appeared with "waves all over her hair" before taking
+a bath in the sea--and
+
+How she looked after having some more "waves all over it."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: CAUTION TO BATHERS
+
+Don't let them jolt you up the beach till you are dressed.
+
+_Jones_ (_obliged to hold fast_). "Hullo! Hi! Somebody stop my boots!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: A FIX
+
+_Separated husband._ "Fetch him out, sir!"
+
+_Proprietor of moke._ "Why, if I went near her, she'd lie down; she
+always goes in just before high water; nothing'll fetch her out till the
+tide turns!"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE HUSBANDS' BOAT, A MARGATE MELODY
+
+    See! what craft Margate Harbour displays,
+      There are luggers and cutters and yawls,
+    They sail upon sunshiny days,
+      For land-sailors arn't partial to squalls.
+    There's Paterfamilias takes out the lot
+      Of the progeny he may own,
+    But the Saturday Evening boat has got
+      A freight that is hers alone.
+    By far the most precious of craft afloat,
+    Is the Saturday Evening "Husbands' Boat".
+
+    There are husbands with luggage, and husbands with none,
+      There are husbands with parcels in hand,
+    They bring down to wives whom they lately have won,
+      Who pretty attentions command.
+    There are husbands who know whate'er time it may be
+      Their wives on the jetty will wait
+    For that Hymeneal argosy,
+      With its matrimonial freight.
+    Oh! the most precious of craft afloat
+    Is the Saturday Evening "Husbands' Boat".
+
+    But the Monday Morning is "Monday black",
+      That when at school we knew,
+    For the husbands to business must all go back,
+      And the wives look monstrous blue;
+    So loud the bell rings, and the steamer starts
+      On her way to Thames Haven again,
+    And amid those who leave are as many sad hearts,
+      As there are amid those who remain.
+    Coming or going of craft afloat,
+    The most prized one is the "Husbands' Boat".
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FINIS!
+
+(THE END OF THE SEASON.)]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FINIS]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BRADBURY, AGNEW & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Punch at the Seaside, by Various
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