TRAN-SLATED.

Cly. The coals I bought as Wallsend are not so.

Ag. Thus groundless hopes vanish—like coals in smoke.

Cly. You speak in words Mysterious, lacking sense.

Ag. The sense is patent to the reasoning mind.

Cly. And yet I paid for them upon the nail.

Ag. What matter, if the price was far too low?

Cly. Then call you eighteen shillings low for coal?

Ag. Yes, for "Prime Wallsend"—what could you expect?

Cly. Listen! In passing 'long the public way

I saw a notice telling of these coals.

It called them "ever-burning": said no skill

Could put them out when once they were alight,

Because they were "the best the world produced."

I purchased some. Ai! ai! They turned out slates.

My household maidens by Prometheus swear

They never saw such stuff for lighting fires.

What of it is not slag, that part is slate,

And slated should they be that sold it me.

Moreover, when with anger I remarked

To those who bore the sacks upon their backs,

Within our cellars to deposit them,

That they had better bear their loads away

Seeing I ordered coals, not lumps of slate,

They answered that, if they refused to burn,

They might be useful for a Rockery!

So now they have the shillings, I the coals.

Ag. And having them, we have no household fires.

Cly. What then to do? You sit with idle hands.

Ag. I cannot turn to Wallsend bits of slag.

Cly. But you can seek the Archon, and denounce

The man whose cunning robs our hearth of flame.

Ag. (going out). In what you say not nothing I perceive.

Women, in hunting cheapness, capture costs.