Or duck a taxman or harry a bum,[7] ]

Or "clip a server,"[8] ] did blithely lie

In the stable parlour next to the sky[9] ]

Dinners, save chance ones, seldom had they,

Unless they could nibble their beds of hay;

But the less they got, they were hardier all—

'T was the custom of Neck-or-Nothing Hall.

One lord there sat in that terrible hall,

Two ladies came at his terrible call,—

One his mother and one his wife,