As they used to do of yore. I shall need a "special" break Thing I never took before Get me one for old sake's sake. After that arrangments make. No hotel will take me in, And a bullock's back would break 'Neath the teak and leaden skin. Tonga ropes are frail and thin, Or, did I a back seat take, In a tonga I might spin Do your best for old sake's sake. After that your work is done. Recollect a Padre must Mourn the departed one Throw the ashes and the dust. Don't go down at once. I trust You will find excuse to "snake Three days' casual on the bust," Get your fun for old sake's sake. I could never stand the Plains. Think of blazing June and May, Think of those September rains Yearly till the Judgment-day! I should never rest in peace, I should sweat and lie awake. Rail me, then, on my decease, To the Hills for old sake's sake. Tonga: Chaise for hill travel. DIVIDED DESTINIES It was an artless Bandar, and he danced upon a pine, And much I wondered how he lived, and where the beast might dine, And many, many other things, till, o'er my morning smoke, I slept the sleep of idleness, and dreamed that Bandar spoke. He said: "6 Oh, man of many clothes! Sad crawler on the Hills! Observe, I know not Ranken's shop, nor Ranken's monthly bills; I take no heed to trousers or the coats that you call dress; Nor am I plagued with little cards for little drinks at Mess. "I steal the bunnia's grain at morn, at noon and eventide (For he is fat and I am spare), I roam the mountain side; I follow no man's carriage, and no, never in my life Have I flirted at Peliti's with another Bandar's wife. Bandar: A monkey, specifically a langur. Ranken: A Simla tailor. Peliti: A Simla confectioner and purveyor. "Oh, man of futile fopperies, unnecessary wraps, I own no ponies in the hills, I drive no tall-wheeled traps ; I buy me not twelve-button gloves, short-sixes' eke, or rings, Nor do I waste at Hamilton's my wealth on 'pretty things.' "I quarrel with my wife at home, we never fight abroad; But Mrs. B. has grasped the fact I am her only lord. I never heard of fever-dumps nor debts depress my soul; And I pity and despise you!" breakfast-roll. Here he pouched my His hide was very mangy, and his face was very red, And ever and anon he scratched with energy his head. His manners were not always nice, but how my spirit cried To be an artless Bandar loose upon the mountainside! So I answered: "Gentle Bandar, an inscrutable Decree Makes thee a gleesome, fleasome Thou, and me a wretched Me. Go! Depart in peace, my brother, to thy home amid the pine: Yet forget not once a mortal wished to change his lot with thine." THE MARE'S NEST Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse He smoked cigars, called churches slow, For Belial Machiavelli kept The little fact a secret, and, She was so good, she made him worse (Some women are like this, I think); He taught her parrot how to curse, Her Assam monkey how to drink. He vexed her righteous soul until She went up, and he went down-hill. Then came the crisis, strange to say, Which turned a good wife to a better. A telegraphic peon, one day, Brought her-now, had it been a letter For Belial Machiavelli, I Know Jane would just have let it lie. Peon: 'Prentice and messenger. But 't was a telegram instead, Marked "urgent," and her duty plain To open it. Jane Austen read :"Your Lilly's got a cough again. Can't understand why she is kept At your expense." Jane Austen wept. It was a misdirected wire. Her husband was at Shaitanpore. She spread her anger, hot as fire, Through six thin foreign sheets or more, Sent off that letter, wrote another To her solicitor and mother. Then Belial Machiavelli saw Her error and, I trust, his own, Wired to the minion of the Law, And traveled wifeward not alone. -- For Lilly thirteen-two and bay — There was a scene a weep or two |