Yeaster.

Dignified reader, were I to claim to be the day before the day after to-morrow, the Bay of Bengal, the ghost of Hamfat the Giblet, or the echo of a dumbell, you would suspect me of harbouring a hiatus in the head, or static in the attic; and rightly so. And yet, when you are officially advised that it is Easter, you inhale the tidings holus bolus and in the piece, on the slender but weighty evidence of the usual slabs of palæological pottery which bear a strange device and boast that they are buns—to say naught of those oval omens of Easter, the imitation eggs of the lollie shops. Believe me, trusting reader, no one knows when Easter really hatches out (not even the baker who calls it Yeaster—which is all bun-combe). It only requires some nit-wit to remark: “Well, well, who'd believe it'll be Goo'friday next Thursday week?” and the cry spreads like the parasites of parrot fever, until the powers that be are piqued into placating the pop-eyed populace by throwing in a vacation.

Astro-comicalities.

Everyone knows in which square of the calendar Christmas Day is liable to land, but Good Friday is prone to nose-dive into the most unsuspected latitudes and logarithms. Certain scientific Solomons say that Easter is in the nature of a seismic seizure, resulting from the sun contracting a complex in the apex, the moon being bitten by the dog star, and a ziff occurring on the zodiac—or some other stellar disturbance equally astro-comical.

And you, gullible reader, let them get away with it; you, a disgusted citizen, a father-of-five, a distracted parent, a mere pedestrian, one-who-knows, etc., etc., are content to take Easter lying down—in bed—hors de combat through a brace of buns.

What would you say if Saturday started to park itself on Monday, and Sunday took to skidding all over the week with the mobility of a butcher's baby in a bath? What, for instance, would be the state of your rave-lengths if, after sacrificing your grog allowance on a brace of coloured matches and a desiccated hurdy-gurdy for the infant Samuel, you suddenly discovered that Guy Fawke's day had slipped into the middle of Ash Wednesday?

Naturally you would go up in the air like a sky rocket.

Tune-in to the ballad of the bunless boy and the story of a mother's love that would not let her chee-ild be bun-coed by bun-combe.

The Ballad of the Bunless Boy.

“Mother, I can feel no pain,
Only a buzzing in the brain;
Give me a slice of hot-cross bun,
Or the egg of an Easter OrpingTon.”

“Weighty Evidence.”

The mother's head was bowed with care,
And she fixed the boy with a glassy stare,
And murmured deep, “No son-of-a-gun,
Shall cross My boy with a hot-cross bun—
Or even the egg of an OrpingTon.”
The shades of night were thick as glue,
Or the lower half of an Irish stew,
And the mother sat, as she sat before,
And muttered a mute “Excelsior!”
“No astro-comical son-of-a-gun
Shall kid my boy with a hot-cross bun.”
“And never,” said she, “shall half-baked dough
Upholster his chest until I know
The strength of this Easter so-and-so.
Ah, never a mother's love they'll rob,
By working a slinter—s'elp me Bob!
And shifting the calendar up a peg.
To cheat my boy of his Easter egg;
Or snatch from the lips of a mother's son,
The ecstasy of a hot-cross bun.
Ah—how do I know the game is square,
When Easter is altered every year?”

Only an Onion!

Ah. sobbing reader, “sufficient unto the dazed is the upheavel thereof,” so why worry about such April-foolishness. In the words of that grand old Spanish sera-grenade or tear-bomb entitled, Men of Garlic:

Gather your onions while you may,
Before they wither and fade away;
For even onions—true till death—
Leave naught but a ripe and flagrant breath;
A lingering odour, thick and warm,
As strong as a dipper of chloroForm:
Wot not if Easter is March or May,
But gather your onions day by day.

Strictly speaking, dear reader, an onion speaks for itself; it possesses a powerful backwash—not the species of acrobatical problem-play you stage in the bath with a young yard-broom, in the last act of which you have to be untied by the plumber and his offsider—but a backwash similar to that produced by the ragged edges of the ocean slopping over the earth, and then getting the wind up and rushing back into the briny.

“Why Bring That Up?”

Undoubtedly, dear reader, one thing brings up another, and this applies to the “briny” perhaps more directly than to any other of the earth's organs. What does the term “briny” suggest, apart from the tit-bits the butcher parks in the pickle keg and sells under an

“Easter lying down, ‘hors de combat.’”

page 14

“Jonah was wrapped up in his whale.”

alias? Is not the word suggestive of permanent waves and strong internal commotion; of the three foolish fishers who went sailing out into the west without a road guide, and perished in a blow-out at the bar. Ah me, dear reader, how many fishers lie out in the deep, and how few refrain from lying on land. Speaking of lying naturally brings us to fishing.

Sharko-marking.

Personally I have never exchanged reminiscences with a Mako on the hoof, or crossed blades with a sword-fish; but the weight of evidence seems to point to the fact that the Jonah affair was a very wan encounter when compared with sharko-marking, or vice versa. Undoubtedly Jonah was wrapped up in his whale, but could he have left such a mark on a Mako? Makoing is no pastime for a Jonah.

A friend of mine who has spent some time and money in the Bay of Lie-lands, tells me that Mako-sharking is the most intoxicating of the liquid vices; when the Mak-ologist slings his hook he never knows what he is going to bring up, especially if the sea is over-emotional; in fact, the beginner is advised to keep his boots securely laced. My fishing friend succeeded in saving His sole, but that was practically the only ballast he found when he called the roll.

He asserts that the Mako is a gregarious guy who craves human companionship so avidly that he often attempts to climb aboard for a bite and sup. Such affection, however, is looked on by the more generously upholstered sportsman as smacking of the flesh spots; but the Mako's passion for human companionship is so marked that he sometimes helps himself to a bite of the boat, in order to “get closer” to his clients; elevating his countenance, he seems to say “Let's get together boys, something deep down inside me seems to tell me that you and I will agree; nothing makes me ill, anyway.”

That sharko-marking is an uncertain sort of pastime is evidenced by the fact that the Mark-operator is strapped into his arm-chair so that the Mako will not get him all at once, if something in the Mako-catching mechanism slips a cog.

Unfortunately my informant's narrative ends abruptly here, because suddenly a realisation of the abysmal futility of fishing, and the vanity of all things venal gripped him amidships. So he sank wanly abaft the bulwarks and communed with the anchor.

A Mak-ode.

But let us lilt:

What a wonderful fish is the Mako,
Superlative sort of a shark, Oh;
He sticks on no airs,
With the plump millionaires,
But his bite is far worse
Than his bark, Oh.
A genial guy is the Mako,
An affable sort of a shark, though;
He'll clamber aboard,
If a duke or a lord,
Shows the least inclination
To lark, Oh.

“Communed with the anchor.”

A frolicsome fish is the Mako,
A ravenous sort of a shark, so
For tuppence or less,
We are bound to confess,
He will take a bite out of your bark, Oh.
A sociable sort is the Mako,
But something approaching a nark, Oh—
A face full of teeth,
And a space underneath,
Where he hopes foolish fishers to park. Oh.
I wish I could capture a Mako,
An obvious sort of remark,
Oh;
With odorous pork,
Calculated to walk,
Down the neck of the average shark, oh.
I fear if I fished for a Mako,
My chances forsooth would be dark, Oh;
It's certain as snuff
If the ocean were rough,
I'd fetch up much more than a Mako.

“Collar Daze.”

Holler-days and Migratory Movies.

Fishing and Railing both require lines, but whereas you run Out the one you run On the others; also, both provide food for thought, or bait for the brain; but the railways are veritable trains of thought, cornucopias of comfort, and, in fact, migratory movies. When Easter eggs you on to unhitch the harness and hike over the horizon, to decentralise your domicile for the duration of the holler-days, you naturally Rail your enthusiasm to the spot marked X-pectation, and why? Because immediately you entrain your holiday is in train; in a train, the holiday spirit is as thick as the lug of a “pug,” it percolates the pores, titillates the temperature, and stretches the hiatus between holler-days and collar-daze, with the impunity of a thoroughly licked liquorice-ladder.

Second Return On The Railway

A train trip is a brain zip, an instigation of inspiration, a concatenation of onsolation, and an emolient for the emotions. After arduous efforts to steer the barrow of business off the banks of bankruptcy, and to convert I.O.U. into L.S.D., your soul sighs for sylvan solace, your brain bursts for the benign benevolence of the bush, the sea-saw of the sea, and a rest from exertion on an Easter excursion. And so you travel by rail with the great happy family of exertionless excursionists; you swap yarns and ham sandwiches, and your happiness is overproof, because it is not bottled up, but is shared with your fellow-man; you are assured that Easter will be a good Egg whether you travel “first” or Second Return On The Railway.