That he meant to go surmising, said I, glancing at the door—
“Going? well, I won’t detain you—mind the stairs and shut the door——”
“Leave you, Tomkins!—never more.”
Startled by an answer dropping hints that he intended stopping
All his life—I knew him equal to it if he liked, or more—
Half in dismal earnest, half in joke, with an attempt at laughing,
I remarked that he was chaffing, and demanded of the bore,
Ask’d what this disgusting, nasty, greedy, vile, intrusive bore
Meant in croaking “Never more?”
But the Vulture not replying, took my bunch of keys, and trying