IN A LOCK.—A WHITSUNTIDE WARBLE.
"Lock! Lock!"—Shock! Rock! That's a pretty frock bulging over the gunwale!
She looks like to choke with that horrible smoke, which is fuming out of the Steam-Launch funnel.
Pleasant old cry! All in, and dry. though we're awfully crowded this first Spring holiday,
Better this than St. Stephen's dead-lock! Our serious Senators out for a jolly day
Might do worse. Who carries the purse? That ten-foot rod with the toll-net ending it
Means a hint. They must make "a mint"; and, by Jove, there are many worse ways of spending it,—
Money, I mean. Now were G-SCH-N seen collecting cash for his dry Exchequer
With pole and net, it were nicer, you bet, than keeping up his financial pecker
With Spirit Duties! Those two blonde beauties in Cambridge blue are exceeding bonny;
B-LF-R now at that same boat's bow would be quite in his element—eh, my sonny?
And OLD MORALITY cooling his legs in the stern-sheets yonder would find the steering
Easier far than amidst the jar of St. Stephen's, hot with T-M H-LY jeering.
S-L-SB-RY, too, with a well-trained crew, would put his back—that broad back of his!—in it.
Don't be in a hurry, my nautical friend! we shall all get out in another minute.
Just like life! Such fidgety strife to be first to the front when the lock-gates sever.
What does it matter, friends, after all? The slow, the skilful, the dull, the clever,
The snake-swift "swell" and the splashing 'ARRY, the puffing launch, and the trim outrigger,
The calm canoest who hugs the timbers, the fussy punter who toils like a nigger,
All will anon be well out in the cutting, the old gates shutting slowly behind them,
And where are those who so shoved to the front? At the tail of the race you may presently find them.
The G.O.M. (with his collars for sails), that jaunty skiff might be handling. Bless us!
Can he take holiday, he whom toil seems to encoil like a shirt of Nessus?
Well, Unionist or Separatist, or chap with a twist like C-NN-NGH-M GR-H-M,
Or howling PAT, or Aristocrat with manners like BRUMMEL and voice like BRAHAM,
Peppery G-SCH-N, or pompous H-RC-RT, or genial SM-TH, the new-made Warden,
All, all, to-day, when the world is gay, the stream like silver, the banks a garden,
Much worse might do than tog up in blue and join a crew on the rolling river,
"Beyond the tide," dropping all their "side," party or personal, leaving "liver,"
And Influenza, and other "Obstructions," all party-jobbers, all jibbers and jolters,
In sunny weather to crowd together in Moulsey Lock, or it might be BOULTER's!
