Now, you may see, by every sorry face, The water party wails its wretched doom, And in that cart—that wends with lingering pace, Altho' there's little _room_, there's lots of _rheum_!
The bill has pass'd, the sharpest bill of latter days, Gin shops must close by twelve o'clock o' Saturdays; And lively landlords now, whate'er their merits, After that time must not _keep up_ their spirits, Nor suffer the most fascinating fox Of all their customers to turn their _cocks_!
Oh! that Ayr tournament in that _ere_ shire; With lots of gentlemen in _male_ attire, And many a Don, and many a Skvire! Took several _days_ and lots of _knights_ to mount; And a great many _pages_ to recount Its deeds of glory—Chivalry their fount! Though lances _shivered_ (and no wonder, for 'Twas cold and rainy) no sword flesh'd its hilt; And we'd pass all unnoticed: but, O lor! We draw our own existence from a _Tilt_!
"I say, Tug," said Mac Turk, one day, soon after our flare-up at Beulah, "Kilblazes comes of age in October, and then we'll cut you out, as I told you: the old barberess will die of spite when she hears what we are going to do. What do you think? we're going to have a tournament!" "What's a tournament?" says Tug, and so said his mamma, when she heard the news; and when she knew what a tournament was, I think, really, she _was_ as angry as Mac Turk said she would be, and gave us no peace for days together. "What!" says she, "dress up in armour, like play-actors, and run at each other with spears? the Kilblazes must be mad!" And so I thought, but I didn't think the Tuggeridges would be mad too, as they were; for, when Jemmy heard that the Kilblazes festival was to be, as yet, a profound secret, what does she do but send down to the _Morning Post_ a flaming account of
"The days of chivalry are _not_ past. The fair Castellane of T-gg-r-dgeville, whose splendid entertainments have so often been alluded to in this paper, has determined to give one which shall exceed in splendour even the magnificence of the middle ages. We are not at liberty to say more; but a tournament, at which His Ex—l—ncy B-r-n de P-nt-r, and Thomas T-gr-g, Esq., eldest son of Sir Th—s T-gr-g, are to be the knights-defendants against all comers; a _Queen of Beauty_, of whose loveliness every frequenter of fashion has felt the power; a banquet, unexampled in the annals of Gunter; and a ball, in which the recollections of ancient chivalry will blend sweetly with the soft tones of Weippert and Collinet, are among the entertainments which the Ladye of T-gg-ridgeville has prepared for her distinguished guests."