CHILDISH COMPLAINTS
AND
OTHER RUTHLESS RHYMES
CHILDISH COMPLAINTS
PRELUDE
(By Way of Advertisement)
I have no knowledge of disease,
No notion what ill-health may be,
Since Housemaid's Throat and Smoker's Knees
Mean something different to me
To what they do to other folk.
(This is, I vow, no vulgar joke.)
Of course, when young, I had complaints,
And little childish accidents;
For twice I ate a box of paints,
And once I swallowed eighteen pence.
(N.B., I missed the paints a lot,
But got the coins back on the spot.)
But no practitioner has seen
My tongue since then, down to the present,
And I, alas! have never been
An interesting convalescent.
Ah! why am I alone denied
The Humour of a weak inside?
Why is it? I will tell you why;
A certain mixture is to blame.
One day for fun I chanced to try
A bottle of—what is the name?
That thing they advertise a lot,—
(Oh, what a memory I've got!)