PART II.


"Tell me, HENRY WADSWORTH, ALFRED POET CLOSE, or MISTER TUPPER,
Do you write the bon bon mottoes my ELVIRA pulls at supper?"

But HENRY WADSWORTH smiled, and said he had not had that honour;
And ALFRED, too, disclaimed the words that told so much upon her.

"MISTER MARTIN TUPPER, POET CLOSE, I beg of you inform us;"
But my question seemed to throw them both into a rage enormous.

MISTER CLOSE expressed a wish that he could only get anigh to me;
And MISTER MARTIN TUPPER sent the following reply to me:

"A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit," -
Which I know was very clever; but I didn't understand it.

Seven weary years I wandered--Patagonia, China, Norway,
Till at last I sank exhausted at a pastrycook his doorway.

There were fuchsias and geraniums, and daffodils and myrtle,
So I entered, and I ordered half a basin of mock turtle.

He was plump and he was chubby, he was smooth and he was rosy,
And his little wife was pretty and particularly cosy.

And he chirped and sang, and skipped about, and laughed with