not so much to me As to yourself. People come once to your establishment, They read your bill, Pay your prices And tip your dirty-shirted waiters, And go away And forget to come back. Hence You are bound to charge The next man that comes along As much extra as he will stand, And by slow degrees Your establishment Is becoming A by-word And a warning. My dear Sir, Have a shilling bottle of wine (For which you charge me 3s. 6d.) At your own expense, Consult with your wife, And make up your mind Never to charge More than 2s. For 9d. worth of goods. Honesty is its own reward— It is really. 

 

 

   TO THE MAN WITH A GUN 

 My dear Sir,— I suppose you are having an excellent time just now. There are a large number of counties In England and Scotland, And I am not acquainted with one of them Wherein your bang-bang And puffs of smoke And red-faced men with dogs Are not to be encountered. You like it; It is very nice; And really, when you come to think of it, It is what the counties were made for. In the history books They were wont to say Of a certain Norman monarch, That he loved the red deer As if he were their brother. Of you it may safely be said That you love the red grouse And the brown partridge. As if you were a poulterer. You are a sportsman. The man who first went out with a gun To shoot game Probably did it on the sly. Had he been caught He would no doubt have been regarded By the sportsmen of his day With the same contempt That you yourself indulge For the unprincipled blackguard, Sir, Who shoots foxes. But time and the gunsmiths Have changed all that; And now you are a sportsman, A shooter of birds For the London market. You are also a gunner, And you kill things. Oh! why do you not go And live at Gunners-bury? Bad joke? Well, I know it is. But I assure you, my dear Sir, That it is not half so bad as I can make them When I try. To come now to the region Of practical politics, Let me explain to you right off That, despite all that has been said against you By people who are mad about the Land And the Game-laws, And the feathered kingdom And so forth, I, Who am always on the side of wisdom, Have discovered a justification for you. It is this: There has been a great demand of late For really competent shots. In response to that demand Mr. Kipling has started a village rifle club. I understand that the members thereof Are, let us say, five hundred in number. Now, I put it to you, Sir, How many sportsmen are there Shooting in this beautiful country and Scotland To-day? Well, we will not compute; It is dangerous. But you could make a fairly big rifle club out of them. They are all good men, And of course 

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