And when three hours were past and gone
He found himself at Somethington;
“What is this place?” he sighed in vain,
For railway men can not speak plain.
When he got home his parents had
To pay his fare, which was too bad;
More than two hundred miles, alas!
The Absent Boy had gone first-class.
For fear he should, in absentness,
Forget his own name and address
Whilst he pursues his meditations,
And so be lost to his relations,
Would it be best that he should wear
A collar like our Tray? or bear
His name and home in indigo
Pricked on his shoulder, or below?
The chief objection to this plan
Is, that his father is a man
Who often moves. If we begin
To prick the Boy’s home on his skin,
Before long he will be tattooed
With indigo from head to foot:
Perhaps a label on his chest
Would meet the difficulty best.