Tube_). "THANK GOODNESS WE SHAN'T 'AVE NO AIR-RAID TO-NIGHT, MRS.
'ARRIS. IT SEEMS TO BE BLOWIN' UP NICELY FOR RAIN."]

* * * * *

TO "MARTIN ROSS."

(_AFTER READING "IRISH MEMORIES."_)

Two Irish cousins greet us here
From BUSHE "the silver-tongued" descended,
Whose lives for close on thirty year
Were indistinguishably blended;
Scorning the rule that holds for cooks,
They pooled their brains and joined their forces,
And wrote a dozen gorgeous books
On men and women, hounds and horses.

They superseded _Handley Cross_;
They glorified the "hunting fever;"
They purged their pages of the dross,
While bettering the fun, of LEVER;
With many a priceless turn of phrase
They stirred us to Homeric laughter,
When painting Ireland in the days
Before Sinn Fein bewitched and "strafed" her.

With them we watched good _Major Yeates_
Contending with litigious peasants,
With "hidden hands" within his gates,