The tenants eyed their lord askance—
There was a step he could not dance!
For jigs and reels they did not care,
And said the hornpipe they could spare.
Sir Guy exclaimed, while tears he wept,
“The situation I accept;
I’ll win that thousand of the loon,
And you shall have your Rigadoon.”
With saddened face and humbled head,
To foreign shores the dancer fled—
And haunted France’s village greens,
And gay guinguettes and lowly scenes,
He learned “Ça Ira” how to troll,
He learned the curious Carmagnole;
He found the can-can very soon,
But could not find the Rigadoon.
* * * *
º
A wanderer from a foreign strand
One summer reached his native land,
He sought the green of days gone by,
But no one recognised Sir Guy.
A crowd came up—he gave a bound—
Cried, “See me win the thousand pound!
Behold! my friends, this afternoon
Your lord will dance a Rigadoon!”
He danced his dance with pride and glee,
But silence fell on Arcadee.
The tenants frowned, and looked askance,
They called it an improper dance,
And begged he would at once desist,
As Mr. Burns, the Socialist,
Required the ground that afternoon,
They didn’t want “no Rigadoon”!
MORAL (SLIGHTLY MIXED).
The young M.P. had run in debt,
Was “broke,” and could not pay his bet.
The natives jeered the twists and turns,
And spurned their squire for Mr. Burns.
This proves how mad we are to roam
In search of steps too far from home;
Prize British dances as a boon,
And leave the French their Rigadoon.
How to Write a Novel.
(THE OLD-FASHIONED RECIPE.)
OU start with a murder and somebody’s killed—
For the public still dearly delight to be thrilled.
You make it a mystery—nobody knows
Who gave John Tregennith those terrible blows.
Since jealousy’s always a motive for crime,
Your heroine’s loved by two men at a time—
Poor John, who has gone where the good niggers go,
And big Ethelbert Brown, who was always his foe.