* * * * *
[Illustration: _Inveterate Golfer_ (_stung by the leading article_). "I
SUPPOSE _I_ AM REALLY NON-ESSENTIAL. IT'S HARD TO REALISE THIS WITH ONE'S
HANDICAP JUST REDUCED TO SEVEN."]
* * * * *
THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT.
When his honour the Colonel took the owld rigiment to France, Herself came
home bringin' the rigimental mascot with her. A big white long-haired
billy-goat he was, the same.
"I'll not be afther lavin him at the daypo," says Herself; "'tis no place
for a domestic animal at all, the language them little drummer-boys uses,
the dear knows," says she.
So me bowld mascot he stops up at the Castle and makes free with the
flower-beds and the hall and the drawin'-room and the domestic maids the
way he'd be the Lord-Lieutenant o' the land, and not jist a plain human
Angory goat. A proud arrygent crature it is, be the powers! Steppin' about
as disdainy as a Dublin gerrl in Ballydehob, and if, mebbe, you'd address
him for to get off your flower-beds with the colour of anger in your mouth
he'd let a roar out of him like a Sligo piper with poteen taken, and fetch
you a skelp with his horns that would lay you out for dead.
And sorra the use is it of complainin' to Herself.
"Ah, Delaney, 'tis the marshal sperit widin him," she'd say; "we must be
patient with him for the sake of the owld rigiment;" and with that she'd
start hand-feedin' him with warmed-up sponge-cake and playin' with his long
silky hair.
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