Which the man without legs—at least, so I've heard— Ran after, and picked up! What did the man without clothes on do? Why, as fast as the whizz of a rocket, He took the bird from the other two, And put it into his pocket! "Oh! that's gammon! nonsense! It could n't be !-A man that's got No arms, to shoot a bird! What! No arms- -I s'pose he had n't even a gun? It could n't have occurred. Then, worst of all, a boy 'as had' No clothes on!-you must think us mad!— To put it in his pocket!- Gad! It's palpably absurd." "Absurd! Oh, dear no! not at all; It's a conundrum, that is all; A very pleasant riddle, bless Your pretty hearts!-and nothing less!" "A riddle, eh! We should not guess it did we stay A whole month's visit. It's quite beyond us, that we vow: There, then, we give it up; and now What is it?" "Why, then, I've practised all my lore To find it out; and no one more Has studied it than me. And I've to this conclusion come,. With which you 'll either all be mum, "It is, then-now, then, look about!Mind! for the murder's coming out, Sharp as the snap of trigger! It is, I think, SO GREAT A LIE, THAT, NEVER MIND HOW HARD YOU TRY, YOU CANNOT TELL A BIGGER!" He'd read in papers oftentimes, Of suicides in France; Which, for their eccentricity, Quite made him look askance. "Why don't they do in France"—you'd hear "And kill themselves as we do here, By poison-hanging-drowning?" In Paris, when he came upon The noted "Pont des Arts!" Which, in our English lingo, we Translate the "Bridge of Arts," d'ye see. Once there, he took out from his pouch, and slick, Him all the French, astonished, clapped their eyes on! Lubbers, look out!" They heard him shout, "That's what I call a settler-that is pison ! "But that's not all," he cried--and quick he took A coil of rope, and 'gan his neck to brace So tightly round, that one without a book Might read, that he was blackening in the face; Then leaped the bridge, with lithsome vault and clever, With "Now I think I've hanged myself, however!" |