“Now your revenue is sinking—it’s no use the matter blinking,
Every day, you know, Sir Stafford, your big deficit grows more,
And you have to borrow, borrow (three more millions, eh, to-morrow?)
You have now a floating debt that’s ten times what it was of yore;
Think upon the splendid Budget Gladstone left in ’Seventy-four,
And your muddle now deplore!”
As the Surplus thus declaiming, me to blushes deep was shaming,
Straight I wheel’d my cushion’d seat in front the Budget on the floor,
Sat on the morocco padding, and betook myself to adding
Figure unto figure, madding though the look the total bore;