MANNERS MAKE THE MAN.
Know ye the wight one frequent meets,
With brazen lungs around the streets
Soliciting a job?
His head in shovel-hat encased,
His legs in cotton hose embraced,
And nick-named "Dusty Bob?"
You hold in small account, no doubt,
One who "dust, oh!" doth bawl about,
Yet low as his estate,
Some philosophic thoughts belong
To him whose time is passed among
The ashes of the grate.
Still, these are matters all apart
From thy design, my muse, who art
Just now intent to tell
An episode of humble life,
That was with courtly manners rife,
And thus the chance befell.
"The rosy morn, with blushes spread,
Now rose from out Tithonus' bed,"
Which means, the world had set
(For these are unromantic days)
About its work, and gone its ways,
Forthwith to toil and sweat.
Among the many that arise,
To pay their morning sacrifice,
That is, to Juggernaut,
Themselves beneath Aurora's car,
With Pagan zeal your dustman are
Beyond all others fraught.
In sooth, to speak, we would not choose
To state these fellows ever snooze,
For bitter as the bore is,
Nor night, nor morn, in square or street,
Can one go forth, but he must meet,
These grim "memento moris."
But to my tale: at break of day,
Up rose the hero of my lay,
With hope his spirits buoy'd;
And ever as he fill'd his cart,
He felt a space beneath his heart
Establishing a void.
Loud and more loud the murmurs rise,
Like an Æolian harp, whose sighs
At first breathe gently; but
Wild music from its bosom springs,
When the wind howls among the strings,
And agitates the gut.
Though Bob knew nought of Æolus,
He learnt, from this internal fuss,
'Twas time for breakfast now:
Or, as he said, "for bit and sup,
His innards was a kicking up
Sich a unkimmon row."
'Twas thus intent on déjeûner,
Our hungry dustman took his way,
In search of fitting food:
Nor long his quest, until he came,
Where a spruce, gay, and buxom dame,
Behind a counter stood.
And, as with horny fist he smoothed his hair,
He thus bespoke that lady debonaire:
"Cut us a slap-up slice of Cheshire cheese,
And tip's a twopenny burster, if you please."
Here, 'tis befitting to relate the guise,
In which Bob met the gentle lady's eyes.
A poll with matted carrots thatched,
A face with mud and smut bepatched,
A neck and chest scarce half begirt
With a lugubrious, yellow shirt,
A slip of waistcoat here and there,
Breeches, a demi-semi pair,
And not a vestige of a coat—
Such was our earthy sans culotte.
When such an apparition met her view,
What was most natural the dame should do?
Straightway address her dainty self,
To seek the treasures of her shelf?
Or clap some musty, antiquated crust,
Between the fingers of the man of dust?
The latter, doubtless, and it so fell out;
Turning, with ill-dissembled scorn, about,
The lady-baker hardly deigned to drop
Into his palm the patriarch of the shop;
A venerable roll, a fixture there—
A household nest-egg of the boulangère.
Here, a domestic mouse had, long ago
(Soon after it was dough),
Wreathed him, as Thomas Moore would say, "his bower"
Among the flower:
And happened, accidentally, to be
Chez lui,
When madame put the piece of antique bread
Into our dustman's hand, as hath been said.
Now, let me ask, had Chesterfield been placed,
What time his chyle with exercise was braced.
To make his meal from off a living mess,
D'ye think my Lord had kept his politesse?
Or acted, as did Bob, the man of dirt,
Who, on the instant that he did insert
His thumb and finger in that roll so stale,
Pull'd out the squeaking vermin by the tail;
And seeing that the bak'ress looked aghast
Upon the means she gave to break his fast—
Blandly observed, "There's some mistake in this,
I didn't ax you for a sandwich, Miss!"
