Right through till we come to the finish—the part he used to perform.
He was out of the cage in a minnit—egged on by puffessional pride,
He pecked that incompitent siskin till he made him stand o’ one side!
Well, I felt like ’aving a good cry then—but the time
’adn’t come for that,
So I slipped his uniform over his ’ed, and tied on his little cock-hat. [With great tenderness.
And he set in his tiny kerridge, and was drored along by the mice,
A-looking that ’appy and pleased with hisself, I got ’em to do it twice! [Tone of affectionate retrospection.
The very tabbies they gazed on him then with their heyes dilatin’ in haw,
As he ’obbled along to the cannon, with the match in his wasted claw!