“Domestic bliss has proved my bane,—
A harder case you never heard,
My wife (in other matters sane)
Pretends that I’m a Dicky bird!
“She makes me sing, ‘Too-whit, too-wee!’
And stand upon a rounded stick,
And always introduces me
To every one as ‘Pretty Dick’!”
“Oh, dear,” said weeping Baines Carew,
“This is the direst case I know.”
“I’m grieved,” said Bagg, “at paining you—
To Cobb and Poltherthwaite I’ll go—
“To Cobb’s cold, calculating ear,
My gruesome sorrows I’ll impart”—
“No; stop,” said Baines, “I’ll dry my tear,
And steel my sympathetic heart.”
“She makes me perch upon a tree,
Rewarding me with ‘Sweety—nice!’
And threatens to exhibit me
With four or five performing mice.”
“Restrain my tears I wish I could”
(Said Baines), “I don’t know what to do.”
Said Captain Bagg, “You’re very good.”
“Oh, not at all,” said Baines Carew.
“She makes me fire a gun,” said Bagg;
“And, at a preconcerted word,
Climb up a ladder with a flag,
Like any street performing bird.
“She places sugar in my way—
In public places calls me ‘Sweet!’
She gives me groundsel every day,
And hard canary-seed to eat.”
“Oh, woe! oh, sad! oh, dire to tell!”
(Said Baines). “Be good enough to stop.”
And senseless on the floor he fell,
With unpremeditated flop!
Said Captain Bagg, “Well, really I
Am grieved to think it pains you so.
I thank you for your sympathy;
But, hang it!—come—I say, you know!”