Mr. Punch's After-Dinner Stories 27After-Dinner Speeches
18
Literature · Humor
Mr. Punch's After-Dinner Stories 27
After-Dinner Speeches
AnonymousEnglish
"When the wine is in, the wit is out;"
Only to dolts the adage reaches.
No wise man could for a moment doubt
The value of after-dinner speeches.
Punch can remember the time when Peel,
Whose wisdom still the country teaches,
After steak and port, his nine o'clock meal,
Made the best of after-dinner speeches.
When the Ministers come to the Mansion House,
(The King of London their presence beseeches,)
No guest who has any touch of nous
Will be weary of after-dinner speeches.
When the Royal Academy blooms in May,
With its pretty girls and their cheeks like peaches
Who won't, on the opening Saturday,
Listen to after-dinner speeches?
When there's ought that's generous to be done,
A greeting to pay that no soul impeaches,
A dinner's the best thing under the sun,
And its gold coin the after-dinner speeches.
And as to the House, which often suffers
From talk that to dreariest platitude reaches,
It does not often allow its duffers
To make long after-dinner speeches.
SCENE--CHOP-HOUSE
Enter Street Boy, and, with suppressed ecstasy. "Oh, please, there's your cat and kittens having such a game with the things in the winder!"
