LADIES' COLUMN. FROM THE GALLERY.

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 102, 27 October 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

LADIES' COLUMN. FROM THE GALLERY.

'Tis a first night performance The players And people are all at their best. Proud, fashion is here in her splendour And folly is gorgeously dressed, While I, with the gods in the gallery, Have managed this evening to shirk Some hours of dull extra labour That fall to a Government clerk. There's a box way down there in the distance, 'Mid music and flowers and lace, And in it, beyond all resistance, I find myself watching the face Of Nellie, the daughter of Gober, Who made sixty millions by work Not so clean in the eyes of a sober And penniless Government clerk. But now Nellie ranks with' the highest. There's a diplomat grand on her right ; On her left, there's a gorgeous tin soldier Whose name only got in the fight; A soldier like those little Nellie And I used to play at, ere Burke Had looked up her pedigree noble To frighten a Government clerk. Ah, Nellie ! pray whom will you marry In all of this gorgeous array? Mr. Sing Loo, of China? A Russian, A Pole, or a Monsieur Francais? A Greek, an Italian, Korean — Or perhaps an unspeakable Turk? A titled though woolly Fijian .You'd prefer to a Government clerk. The qurtain has dropped," and the people Ate solemnly moving away. I believe 'twas a splendid performance, Yet I was not watching the play. I was thinking — "Oh, Jack, you are cruel ; I love you'* — a whisper, a jerk At my heart, Nellie's hand on my shouder Makes a King of the Government clerk. — Annulet Andrews in Life.