"I find you cannot, like the birds, Within your little nest agree, So I'll unfold, in briefest words, A plan which has occurred to me.
"These quarrellings, these manners lax, In comfort means a loss for us, So I must tie you up in sacks And throw you in the Bosphorus."
He tied them up; he threw them in; Then Pasha Bey, I beg to state, Did _not_ seek sympathy to win By posing as disconsolate.
He mourned a week; and then, they say (A Pasha is, of course, a catch), Our friend, the good Abdulla Bey, Got married to another batch.
Permit me, and I will quite briefly relate The sad story of Algernon Croker. Take warning, good friends, and beware of the fate Of this asinine practical joker, Who early in life caused the keenest distress To his uncle, Sir Barnaby Tatton, By affixing a pin in the form of an S To the chair which Sir Barnaby sat on.
His uncle had often been heard to declare That to make him his heir he was willing; But the point of _this_ joke made Sir Barnaby swear That he'd cut the boy off with a shilling. Their anger his parents took means to express, Tho' I may not, of course, be exact on The particular spot—though you'll probably guess— That young Croker was properly whacked on.
His pranks, when they presently sent him to school, Resulted in endless disasters, And final expulsion for playing the fool (He made "apple-pie" beds for the masters). Nor was he more fortunate later in life, When courting a lady at Woking; For he failed to secure this sweet girl for his wife On account of his practical joking.
To her father—a person of eighteen-stone-two, In a round-about coat and a topper— He offered a seat; then the chair he withdrew, And, of course, the old chap came a cropper. Such conduct, the father exceedingly hurt, And he wouldn't consent to the marriage; So the daughter she married a person named Birt, And she rides to this day in her carriage.
But these are mere trifles compared with the fate Which o'ertook him, and which I'm recalling, When he ventured to joke with an old Potentate, With results which were simply appalling. 'Twas in some foreign country, far over the sea, Where he held a small post ministerial (An Ambassador, Consul, or _something_ was he. _What_ exactly is quite immaterial).