THE POST THAT FITTED

Though tangled and twisted the course of true love,
This ditty explains

No tangle's so tangled it cannot improve
If the Lover has brains.

RE the steamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to marry

An attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called 'my little Carrie.'

Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way. Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight paltry dibs a day?

Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished quarters

Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boffkin's daughters.

Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch, But the Boffkins knew that Minnie mightn't make another match.

So they recognised the business and, to feed and clothe the bride,

Got him made a Something Something somewhere on the Bombay side.

Anyhow, the billet carried pay enough for him to

marry

As the artless Sleary put it:-'Just the thing for me and Carrie.'

Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin-impulse of a baser mind?

No! He started epileptic fits of an appalling kind. [Of his modus operandi only this much I could gather:'Pears' shaving sticks will give you little taste and lots of lather.']

Frequently in public places his affliction used to smite Sleary with distressing vigour—always in the Boffkins' sight.

Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his ring, Told him his 'unhappy weakness' stopped all thought of marrying.

Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy,

Epileptic fits don't matter in Political employ,—

Wired three short words to Carrie-took his ticket, packed his kit—

Bade farewell to Minnie Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit.

Four weeks later, Carrie Sleary read-and laughed until she wept

Mrs. Boffkin's warning letter on the 'wretched epilept.' Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffkin sits

Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits.

A CODE OF MORALS

Lest you should think this story true
I merely mention I

Evolved it lately. 'Tis a most

Unmitigated misstatement.

WOW Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,

NO

And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the

Afghan border,

To sit on a rock with a heliograph, but ere he left he taught His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at

naught.

And Love had made him very sage, as Nature made her fair;

So Cupid and Apollo linked, per heliograph, the pair. At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise

At e'en, the dying sunset bore her husband's homilies.

He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold,

As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the old; But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs)

That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs.

'Twas General Bangs, with Aide and Staff, that tittupped on the way,

When they beheld a heliograph tempestuously at play. They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and burnt

So stopped to take the message down-and this is what they learnt:

'Dash dot dot, dot, dot dash, dot dash dot' twice. The General swore.

'Was ever General Officer addressed as "dear" before? "My Love," i' faith! "My Duck," Gadzooks! "My darling popsy-wop!"

Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, who is on that mountain top?'

The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the gilded Staff were still,

As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that message from the hill;

For clear as summer-lightning flare, the husband's warning ran:

'Don't dance or ride with General Bangs-a most immoral man.'

[At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise

But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.]

With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife Some interesting details of the General's private life.

A CODE OF MORALS

The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the shining Staff were still,

And red and ever redder grew the General's shaven gill. And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not):'I think we've tapped a private line. Hi! Threes about there! Trot!'

All honour unto Bangs, for ne'er did Jones thereafter know

By word or act official who read off that helio.;

But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mool-tan

They know the worthy General as 'that most immoral man.'