London.
PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE, 83 FLEET STREET,
Also sold by all booksellers
1895
LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 109.
December 28, 1895.
A COLLOQUY IN CLOUDLAND.
SCENE—Cloudland, nigh to midnight of the last day of the Old Year.The Incomparable Sage of Fleet Street and "La Mancha's Matchless Knight"mounted on their respective wooden horses.
Mr. Punch (spurring the Spotted One). Yoicks! Tallyho!! Harkforward!!! Something like space-consumingspeed this, eh, my dear Don? Who talks now of a Horseless Age?
Don Quixote (turning the peg of Malambruno's magic steed). Onlyyour scientific and sensational journals, who,dryasdust dogs! are, after all, endless leagues behind Merlin the Enchanter, andthe magic-aided heroes of old romance.
Mr. Punch. Kim up, my timber-built timber-topper, and spottedspace-devourer! As though the much-talked ofmotor-carriage, auto-cycle, or petroleum-propelled tram-car of these mouthingdays of modernity might compare with theTrifaldi's steed, my spotted Pegasus, or even the peripatetic carpet of Persianstory! Speed you well, valorous knight!
Don Quixote. Heaven guide thee, undaunted Sage! Hah! How you fly aloft!How you cut the air more swiftlythan an arrow!! How you mount, and soar, and astonish the world below!!!
Mr. Punch. Haha! Ours is no imaginary, bellows-blown flight, as wasyours, worthy knight, when seated withSancho on the wooden crupper of Clavileno, pressed aforetime by thevalourous Peter of Provence, and the fair Magalona!
Don Quixote. Nay, indeed, Sir Knight of the Spotted Bucephalus—for thouart no chivalry-scorning Trifaldi—weare not now blindfolded, and thy Pegasus, thy Brilladoro,thy Bayarte, thy Frontino, thy Clavileno el Aligero—orWooden-Pegthe Winged—might give a lead even to my renowned Rosinante!
Mr. Punch. Blindfolded? Nay, dear knight, I am the Dazzling Illuminator,not the Bewildering Blinder!
Don Quixote. I plainly perceive that thou art a Progressive.
Mr. Punch. I am a Progressive Moderate and a Moderate Progressive. Badgeme not therefore in any less comprehensivefashion, O Knight of the Rueful Countenance.
Don Quixote. I presume, Sir Sage, that those same Progressives, however,who claim to initiate all the forthrightmovement of the Age, did originate and invent the motor-carriages, auto-cycles,and other the