A PLUMBER.
(An Episode of a rapid Thaw.)
THE dirty snow was thawing fast,
As through the London streets there passed
A youth, who, mid snow, slush, and ice,
Exclaimed, "I don't care what's the price—
A Plumber!"
His brow looked mad, his eye beneath
Was fixed and fierce—he clenched his teeth,
While here and there a bell he rung,
But found not all the shops among
A Plumber.
He saw his home, he saw the light
Wall-paper sopped—a gruesome sight.
He saw his dining-room afloat,
He cried, "I'll give a fi' pun note—
A Plumber!"
"O stop the leak!" his wife had said;
"The ceiling's cracking overhead.
The roaring torrent's deep and wide"—
"I'll go and fetch," he had replied,
"A Plumber."
"Pa ain't at home," the maiden said,
When to the plumber's house he sped.
He searched through London low and high,
But nowhere could he catch or spy
A Plumber.
Next morn, a Peeler on his round,
A mud-bespattered trav'ller found,
Who grasped the "Guide to Camden Town"
With hand of ice—the page turned down
At "Plumbers."
They brought a parson to his side,
He gently murmured ere he died—
"My house has floated out to sea,
I am not mad—it's not d. t.—
It's Plumbers."
This parody is to be found in a small volume entitled The Lifeboat and other Poems, by George R. Sims (John P. Fuller, Wine Office Court, London, 1883).
By the author's kind permission I am also enabled to quote the very funny, although slightly incoherent, remarks of—