We fitted out—my Muse and I together—

And launched adown the galley-slips of Chatto

A barque of verse, full-rigged for halcyon weather,

Which many a critic judged to take the gâteau:

(Though some there were, high pundits of disparity,

Who wept at our unscholarly vulgarity).

We have sailed far since then; crossed our horizon;

Published our loves and travels in a novel

(A tale, men say, that Peckham’s flapper cries on,

So that both Boots and Smith’s before us grovel);