That is the twenty-seventh time to-day!
What is the use of Nobbs's Nasal Spray?
What use my aunt's "unfailing" recipes?
There is no anodyne for this disease—
Thirty, I think! Another hanky, please—
A-tish-oo!
The world is gay; the bee bestrides the rose;
But I blaspheme and madly blow my nose.
For shame, O world! for shame, the heartless bee!
Your sweetest blooms are misery to me;
And as for that condemned acacia-tree—
A-tish-oo!
Oh, could I roam, contented like the sheep,
In sunlit fields where, as it is, I weep;
Oh, to be fashioned like the lower classes,
Who simply revel in the longest grasses,
While I sit lachrymose with coloured glasses—
A-tish-oo!
Fain would I spend my summers high in air;
At least there are no privet-hedges there.
But even then I have no doubt the smell
From slopes celestial of asphodel
Would fill the firmament and give me hell—
A-tish-oo!
They tell me 'tis the man of intellect
The baneful seeds especially affect;
And I that sneeze one million times a year—
I ought to have a notable career,
Though, at the price, an earldom would be dear—
A-tish-oo!
Gladly, indeed, to some less gifted swain
Would I concede my fine but fatal brain,
Could I like him but sniff the jasmine spray
Or couch unmoved within a mile of hay,
And not explode in this exhausting way—
A-tish-oo!
Wanted, a Faith-healer.
Dear Madam,—We have received your enquiry for Sergeant ——, and wish to inform you that he was transferred to —— Hospital, suffering from a slightly sceptic toe. Trusting this information may be of some value,
Yours faithfully, ——
"It scarcely seems as if the Premiership of Graf Moritz Esterhazy, with all his Oxford education and the vigour of his thirty-six years, will be able to bruise the serpent's heel."—Observer.
The serpent is so beastly cunning; he always sits on it.
"MARRIAGES.—All contemplating Marriage consult Proprietors —— Matrimonial Bureau, Melbourne, opposite Old Cemetery. Specially erected for the purpose."—The Age (Melbourne).
This recalls the description of a famous football-ground in Dublin, "conveniently situated between the Mater Misericordiae Hospital and Glasnevin Cemetery."