THE MAN WHO COULD WRITE Shun -shun the Bowl! That fatal, facile drink Has ruined many geese who dipped their quills in 't ; Bribe, murder, marry, but steer clear of Ink Save when you write receipts for paid-up bills in 't Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen, Boanerges Blitzen argued, therefore: "I (Men who spar with Government need to back their blows, Something more than ordinary journalistic prose.) Never young Civilian's prospects were so bright, Till an Indian paper found that he could write : Never young Civilian's prospects were so dark, When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark. Certainly he scored it, bold and black and firm, C-lv-n: Cliveden. L-1: Lyell; high Indian officials. The Man Who Could Write When the rag he wrote for praised his plucky game, Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame : When the men he wrote of, shook their heads and swore, Boanerges Blitzen only wrote the more. Posed as Young Ithuriel, resolute and grim, Till he found his furlough strangely hard to win, Then it seemed to dawn on him something was n't right Boanerges Blitzen put it down to "spite." Languished in a District desolate and dry; Watched the Local Government yearly pass him by; Wondered where the hitch was; called it most unfair. That was seven years ago and he still is there. MUNICIPAL "Why is my District death-rate low?" "Wells, drains, and sewage-outfalls are My own peculiar fad. I learned a lesson once. It ran Thus," quote that most veracious man :— It was an August evening, and, in snowy garments clad, I paid a round of visits in the lines of Hezebad; When, presently, my Waler saw, and did not like at all, A Commissariat elephant careering down the Mall. I could n't see the driver, and across my mind it rushed That the Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth. I didn't care to meet him, and I could n't well get down, So I let the Waler have it, and we headed for the town. The buggy was a new one, and, praise Dykes, it stood the strain, Till the Waler jumped a bullock just above the City Drain; Waler: A horse of New South Wales origin. Musth: The mad rage to which elephants are subject. Municipal And the next that I remember was a hurricane of squeals, And the creature making toothpicks of my five-foot patent wheels. He seemed to want the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear Reached the four-foot drain-head safely, and, in darkness and despair, Felt the brute's proboscis fingering my terror-stiffened hair. Heard it trumpet on my shoulder tried to crawl a little higher Found the Main Drain sewage-outfall blocked, some eight feet up, with mire; And, for twenty reeking minutes, Sir, my very marrow froze, While the trunk was feeling blindly for a purchase on my toes! It missed me by a fraction, but my hair was turning gray Before they called the drivers up and dragged the brute away. Then I sought the City Elders, and my words were very plain. They flushed that four-foot drain-head, and it never choked again. |