"Yes," replied the Idiot. "Indeed, my first effort was a lyric on the clothes-pin. I started one night to do the contents of the kitchen-dresser drawer in French forms, but the first thing I took out was an egg-beater, and it wouldn't go, so I did the clothes-pin lyric. I call it
"Blow, ye winds, I fear ye not; Blast, ye simoon, Sere and hot!
"Hurricane, And cyclone, too, Blow, I have no Fear of you.
"Lacking beauty, Lacking grace, Lacking handsome Form and face;
"Lacking soul And intellect, Still I stand up, Proud, erect.
"For the Fates Have given me Wondrous great Tenacity.
"And success, Both fair and fine, Comes to him Who holds his line.
"Burrs can stick And so can glue-- Mucilage, Stratena, too;
"But there's nothing Holds so fast As the clothes-pin To the last."
"And you gave up the egg-beater altogether?" asked the Poet, restraining a natural inclination to find flaws in the construction of the clothes-pin poem.
"Oh no," said the Idiot, "I knocked off a little quatrain on that. I called it 'The Speedy Egg-Beater,' and it goes like this:
"Great Maude S. can beat all steeds, However speedy be their legs; But I distance her with ease When it comes to beating eggs."
"I really think that you would have done better to give up the egg-beater," said the Poet, grown critical. "I've no patience with one-rhymed quatrains. Now if you had written:
"Great Maude S. can beat all steeds, However speedy be their legs; But despite her doughty deeds; I can beat her beating eggs,
"I accept the amendment," replied the Idiot, meekly. "I realized the weakness of the thing myself, and thought of changing it into a couplet, where you only need one rhyme. How's this on a 'Carpet-Tack'?"
[Illustration: "'FOR THOUGH I'M BUT A CARPET-TACK
"However dull the day, However dull the skies, However dark the night may be, My spirits ever rise.
"For though I'm but a carpet-tack, Afar from moil and strife, No one can ever truly say That mine's a pointless life."
"That is very good," said the Poet. "I think almost any editor of any comic paper would be willing to pay you three dollars for that. It is as good as your poem on a ton of coal--simple in its expression and sweet in sentiment."
"I thought you'd think so," said the Idiot. "It struck me so. I've got one on a screw-driver, too, that is very much of the same order, and conveys a moral lesson to the reader who is always reaching out after the unattainable. It reads as follows: