“Come, walk like this,” the dancer said,
“Stick out your toes—stick in your head,
Stalk on with quick, galvanic tread—
Your fingers thus extend;
The attitude’s considered quaint.”
The weary Bishop, feeling faint,
Replied, “I do not say it ain’t,
But ‘Time!’ my Christian friend!”
“We now proceed to something new—
Dance as the Paynes and Lauris do,
Like this—one, two—one, two—one, two.”
The Bishop, never proud,
But in an overwhelming heat
(His name was Peter, I repeat)
Performed the Payne and Lauri feat,
And puffed his thanks aloud.
Another game the dancer planned—
“Just take your ankle in your hand,
And try, my lord, if you can stand—
Your body stiff and stark.
If, when revisiting your see,
You learnt to hop on shore—like me—
The novelty would striking be,
And must attract remark.”
“No,” said the worthy Bishop, “no;
That is a length to which, I trow,
Colonial Bishops cannot go.
You may express surprise
At finding Bishops deal in pride—
But if that trick I ever tried,
I should appear undignified
In Rum-ti-Foozle’s eyes.
“The islanders of Rum-ti-Foo
Are well-conducted persons, who
Approve a joke as much as you,
And laugh at it as such;
But if they saw their Bishop land,
His leg supported in his hand,
The joke they wouldn’t understand—
’T would pain them very much!”
THE PRECOCIOUS BABY.
A VERY TRUE TALE.
(To be sung to the Air of the “Whistling Oyster.”)
An elderly person—a prophet by trade—
With his quips and tips
On withered old lips,
He married a young and a beautiful maid;
The cunning old blade!
Though rather decayed,
He married a beautiful, beautiful maid.
She was only eighteen, and as fair as could be,
With her tempting smiles
And maidenly wiles,
And he was a trifle past seventy-three:
Now what she could see
Is a puzzle to me,
In a prophet of seventy—seventy-three!
Of all their acquaintances bidden (or bad)
With their loud high jinks
And underbred winks,
None thought they’d a family have—but they had;
A dear little lad
Who drove ’em half mad,
For he turned out a horribly fast little cad.