"Who built this fine stone affair?" said R----, pointing to the pea-green
promenade on our right.
"The people of Margate," said some one.
"I thought nobody in England but the king could make a _pier_," said R----.
"Come, come," cried B----, "let us be grave for a minute or two; we look
more like a parcel of boys landing than a grave and learned body."
"Youth is the time for punning," said R----.
"It is no great crime when one is older," said B----.
"That I deny," answered our wag; "it may be good in _youth_, but it is
_bad in age._"
The groan which followed this last pun of the voyage reechoed along the
shore, and it was not until we reached Howe's hotel, a sort of Bath York
House stuck in the middle of Golden Square, London, that the tumult died
away.
* * * * *
THE UNICORN.
In the physical world, some of our secrets are disappearing; and though
Captain Parry failed to find out the pole, and we believe, with that
worthy navigator, that the world have been dreaming from the beginning,
and that there is no pole; and though Captain Ross will go further and
fare worse, yet things are turning up now and then that our most
benevolent scepticism cannot resist.
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