'TO MARY
'I seem, in the midst of the crowd, The lightest of all; My laughter rings cheery and loud, In banquet and ball. My lip hath its smiles and its sneers, For all men to see; But my soul, and my truth, and my tears, Are for thee, are for thee!'
'Do you call THAT neat, Wiggle?' says I. 'I declare it almost makes me cry myself.'
'Now suppose,' says Wiggle, 'we say that all the world is at my feet—make her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing—and that—that I'm going to TRAVEL, you know? That perhaps may work upon her feelings.'
So WE (as this wretched prig said) began again:—
'Around me they flatter and fawn—The young and the old, The fairest are ready to pawn Their hearts for my gold. They sue me—I laugh as I spurn The slaves at my knee, But in faith and in fondness I turn Unto thee, unto thee!'
'Now for the travelling, Wiggle my boy!' And I began, in a voice choked with emotion—
'Away! for my heart knows no rest Since you taught it to feel; The secret must die in my breast I burn to reveal; The passion I may not. . . .'
'I say, Snob!' Wiggle here interrupted the excited bard (just as I was about to break out into four lines so pathetic that they would drive you into hysterics). 'I say—ahem—couldn't you say that I was—a—military man, and that there was some danger of my life?'
'You a military man?—danger of your life? What the deuce do you mean?'