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The Story of Uriah

But I should n't be astonished
If now his spirit knows
The reason of his transfer
From the Himalayan snows.

And, when the Last Great Bugle Call
Adown the Hurnai throbs,
When the last grim joke is entered
In the big black Book of Jobs,
And Quetta graveyards give again.
Their victims to the air,

I shouldn't like to be the man
Who sent Jack Barrett there.

Hurnai: A pass in the Himalayas.

THE POST THAT FITTED

Though tangled and twisted the course of true love,
This ditty explains

No tangle 's so tangled it can not improve
If the Lover has brains.

Ere the steamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to marry

An attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called "my little Carrie."

Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other

way.

Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight paltry dibs a day?

Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished quarters

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Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boffkin's daughters.

Certainly an impecunious subaltern was not a catch, But the Boffkins knew that Minnie might n't make another match.

So they recognized the business, and, to feed and clothe the bride,

Got him made a Something Something somewhere on the Bombay side.

Dibs: Rupees.

The Post That Fitted

Anyhow, the billet carried pay enough for him to marry

As the artless Sleary put it: "Just the thing for me and Carrie."

Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin - impulse of a baser mind?

No! He started epileptic fits of an appalling kind. (Of his modus operandi only this much I could

gather :

"Pears' shaving sticks will give you little taste and lots of lather.")

Frequently in public places his affliction used to smite Sleary with distressing vigor - always in the Boffkins'

sight.

Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his

ring,

Told him his " unhappy weakness stopped all thought of marrying.

Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy,

Epileptic fits don't matter in political employ,

Wired three short words to Carrie-took his ticket, packed his kit.

Bade farewall to Minnie Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit.

Modus operandi: Way to go about it.

Four weeks later Carrie Sleary read-and laughed until she wept

Mrs.

Boffkin's warning letter on the "wretched epilept."

Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boff

kin sits

Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits.

PUBLIC WASTE

Walpole talks of "a man and his price."
List to a ditty queer—

The sale of a Deputy-Acting-Vice-
Resident-Engineer,

Bought like a bullock, hoof and hide,

By the Little Tin Gods on the Mountain Side.

By the Laws of the Family Circle 't is written in letters of brass

That only a Colonel from Chatham can manage the Railways of State,

Because of the gold on his breeks, and the subjects wherein he must pass;

Because in all matters that deal not with Railways his knowledge is great.

Now Exeter Battleby Tring had labored from boyhood to eld

On the Lines of the East and the West, and eke of the North and South;

Many Lines had he built and surveyed-important the posts which he held;

And the Lords of the Iron Horse were dumb when he opened his mouth.

Black as the raven his garb, and his heresies jettier still

Hinting that Railways required lifetimes of study and knowledge;

Breeks: Scotch for trousers.

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