"If," said the Moon-man moodily. "It would require a great many 'ifs' to make me happy. As I once wrote:
If cash were always present,
And business always paid;
If skies were always pleasant,
And pipes were never laid;
If toothache emigrated,
Dyspepsia disappeared,
And babies were cremated,
And boys and girls were speared;
If shirts were always creamy,
And buttons never broke;
If eyes were always beamy,
And all could see a joke;
If ladies never fumbled
At railway pigeon holes;
New villas never crumbled,
And lawyers boasted souls;
If beer was never swallowed,
And cooks were never drunk,
And trades were never followed,
And thoughts were never thunk;
If sorrow never troubled,
And pleasure never cloyed,
And animals were doubled,
And humans all destroyed;
Then—if there were no papers,
And more words rhymed with "giving"—
Existence would be capers,
And life be worth the living.
Your lordship might give me a poem in exchange," concluded the Moon-man conceitedly. "An advance quote from your next volume, say."
"Very well," and the peer good-naturedly began to recite the first fytte of an old English romance.
Ye white moon sailed o'er ye dark-blue vault,
And safely steered mid ye fleet of starres,
And threw down smiles to ye antient salt,
While Venus flyrtede with wynkynge Mars.
Along ye sea-washed slipperie slabbes
Ye whelkes were stretchynge their weary limbs,
While prior to going to bedde ye crabbes
Were softlie chaunting their evenynge hymnes."
At this point a sudden shock threw both bards off their feet, inverting them in a manner most disagreeable to the Moon-man. While they were dropping into poetry, the balloon had been dropping into a wood, and the aeronaut had thrown his grapnel into the branches of a tree.
"What's the matter?" they cried.
"Change here for London!" said the Herr, phlegmatically, "unless you want to go mit me to Calais. In five more minutes I shall be crossing de Channel."
"No, no, put us down," said the Moon-man. "I never could cross the Channel. Oh, when are they going to make that tunnel?" Thereupon he lowered himself into the tree, and Lord Silverdale followed his example.
