A battered hat, and rusty clothes,
With grimy digits in sorry state,
And a smooch on the end of his big red nose.
That was the way that Foster went,
—Mixture of shrewdness and folly blent,
Mending the pots and the pans as ordered,
But leaving the leak in his nob unsoldered.
But Foster the tinker was no one’s fool;
He fired an answer every time.
’Twas either a saw or proverb or rule,