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A CODE OF MORALS

Lest you should think this story true,
I merely mention I

Evolved it lately. 'T is a most
Unmitigated misstatement.

Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,

And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan

border,

To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he

taught

His wife the wording of the Code that sets the miles at naught.

And love had made him very sage, as Nature made her fair;

So Cupid and Apollo linked, per heliograph, the pair.

At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise

At e'en the dying sunset bore her husband's homilies.

He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold,

As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the

old;

But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs)

That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General

Bangs.

'T was General Bangs, with Aide and Staff, that tittupped on the way,

When they beheld a heliograph tempestuously at

play;

They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and burnt

So stopped to take the message down-and this is what they learnt :

"Dash dot dot, dot, dot dash, dot dash dot" twice. The General swore.

"Was ever General Officer addressed as dear' be

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Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, who is on that mountain top?"

The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the gilded Staff were still,

As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that message from the hill;

For, clear as summer's lightning flare, the husband's

warning ran :

"Don't dance or ride with General Bangs

immoral man."

Dash dot, etc.: "Dear" in the Morse alphabet.

a most

A Code of Morals

(At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise

But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath

eyes.)

With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his

wife

Some interesting details of the General's private life.

The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the shining Staff were still,

And red and ever redder grew the General's shaven

gill.

And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter

not):

"I think we've tapped a private line. Hi! Threes about there! Trot!"

All honor unto Bangs, for ne'er did Jones thereafter know

By word or act official who read off that helio.;

But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to

Mooltan

They knew the worthy General as "that most immoral man."

THE LAST DEPARTMENT

Twelve hundred million men are spread
About this Earth, and I and You
Wonder, when You and I are dead,
What will those luckless millions do.

"None whole or clean," we cry, "or free from stain

Of favor." Wait a while, till we attain

The Last Department, where nor fraud nor fools,

Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.

Fear, Favor, or Affection-what are these
To the grim Head who claims our services?
I never knew a wife or interest yet
Delay that pukka step, miscalled "decease;"

When leave, long overdue, none can deny ;
When idleness of all Eternity

Becomes our furlough, and the marigold
Our thriftless, bullion-minting Treasury.

Transferred to the Eternal Settlement
Each in his strait, wood-scantled office pent,
No longer Brown reverses Smith's appeals,
Or Jones records his Minute of Dissent.

Pukka: Ripe, overripe.

The Last Department

And One, long since a pillar of the Court,
As mud between the beams thereof is wrought :
And One who wrote on phosphates for the

crops

Is subject-matter of his own Report.

(These be the glorious ends whereto we pass
Let Him who Is, go call on Him who Was ;
And He shall see the mallie steals the slab
For currie-grinder, and for goats the grass.)

A breath of wind, a Border bullet's flight,
A draught of water, or a horse's fright
The droning of the fat Sheristadar
Ceases, the punkah stops, and falls the night

For you or Me. Do those who live decline
The step that offers, or their work resign?

Trust me, To-day's Most Indispensables, Five hundred men can take your place or mine.

Mallie: Native gardener.

Sheristadar: Native clerk of court

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