Do this, and you will forge
A deathless battle-axe
For England’s new St. George
Who slew the income tax.
Nonsense.
HE Strand was in a dreadful state,
And so was Mary Ann
They’d gone and raised the postal rate
’Twixt her and her young man.
She might have sent by parcels post
Her lover’s Christmas card,
But gales were raging round the coast,
And it was freezing hard.
What was a poor distracted maid
To do in such a case,
When only half the odds were laid
An hour before the race?
She had a right to see the rules,
According to the law;
But as the staff were mostly fools,
The time was all she saw.
So, losing heart, she gave a groan
And, taking off her socks,
She dropped them (they were not her own)
Inside the pillar-box.
(Her socks, as you may shrewdly guess,
Were stockings, truth to tell;
For as to-day young ladies dress
Socks would not look so well.)
She left her boots to mark the place,
And went to Drury Lane;
But there was that in Gus’s face
Which filled her heart with pain.