But woe betide you when the stones have worn away the leather;
For they'll poke your little pettitoes (and there will be a hobble!)
In such a pair of shoes as none but carpenters can cobble!
What next?—to fill your head with French to match the native girls,
In scraps of Galignani they'll screw up your little curls;
And they'll take their nouns and verbs, and some bits of verse and prose,
And pour them in your ears that you may spout them through your nose.
You'll have to learn a chou is quite another sort of thing
To that you put your foot in; that a belle is not to ring;
That a corne is not the nubble that brings trouble to your toes;