[Original Size] -- [Medium-Size]
XII.
Jack, the monsters having "licked,"
Had, of course, their pockets picked,
And their keys and eke their riches
Had abstracted from their breeches.
"Ladies," he said, with a Chesterfield's ease,
Permit me, I pray you, to present you with these,"
And he placed in their hands the coin and the keys:
"So long having swung,
By your poor tresses hung,
Sure your nerves are unhinged though yourselves are unstrung;
To make you amends,
Take these few odds and ends,
This nice little castle, I mean, and its wealth;
And I 've only to say,
That I hope that you may
For the future enjoy the most excellent health."
Said the ladies—"Oh, thank you!—expressions we lack "—
"Don't mention it pray," said the complaisant Jack.
XIII.
Jack knelt and kissed the snow-white hands
Of the lovely ladies three;
Oh! who these matters that understands
But thinks, "would that I'd been he! "
Then he bids them adieu; "Au revoir," they cry.
"Take care of yourselves," he exclaims, "good bye!"
XIV.
Away, like Bonaparte in chase,
O'er mount and moor goes Jack;
With his trusty sword before his face,
And its scabbard behind his back.
Away he goes,
And follows his nose;
No wonder, then, that at close of day,
He found himself out
In his whereabout;—
"Dash my buttons," he cried, "I have lost my way
Before him stretched a lonely vale—
Just the place for robbing the mail
Ere that conveyance went by "rail"—
On either side a mount of granite
Outfaced indignant star and planet;
Its thunder-braving head and shoulders,
And threatening crags, and monstrous boulders,
Ten times as high as the cliffs at Brighton,
Uprearing like a "bumptious" Titan,
Very imposing to beholders.
Now the red sun went darkly down,
More gloomy grew the mountains' frown,
And all around waxed deeper brown,—
Jack's visage deeper blue;
Said he, "I guess I'm in a fix,"—
Using a phrase of Mr. Slick's,—
"What on earth shall I do?"