Passed with a mournful anxious face
Into the banker's inner place;
Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace,
Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass,
Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass
Such troops of ills his labors should harass;
Politely swallowed searching questions rude,
And kissed the dust to melt his Dives's mood.
At last, small loans by pledges great renewed,
He issues smiling from the fatal door,