say;
Likeways also the newspaper cuttins enclosed. You're on Rummikey's lay.
Awful good on yer, CHARLIE, old chummy, to take so much trouble for me;
But do keep on yer 'air, dear old pal; _I_ am still right end uppards,
yer see.

You are needled along of some parties,--er course you ain't fly to their
names,--
As has bin himitating Yours Truly. Way-oh! It's the oldest o' games,
Himitation is, CHARLIE. It makes one think DARWIN was right, anyhow,
And that most on us did come from monkeys, which some ain't so fur from
'em now.

You start a smart game, or a paying one--something as knocks 'em, dear
boy,
No matter, mate, whether it's mustard, or rhymes, or a sixpenny toy;
They'll be arter you, nick over nozzle, the smuggers of notions and nips,
For the mugs is as 'ungry for wrinkles as broken-down bookies for tips.

Look at DICKENS, dear boy, and Lord TENNYSON--ain't they bin copied all
round?
Wy, I'm told some as liked ALFRED's verses at fust, is now sick of the
sound;
All along o' the parrots, my pippin. Ah, that's jest the wust o' sech
fakes!
People puke at the shams till they think the originals ain't no great
shakes.

'Tain't fair, CHARLIE, not by a jugful, but anger's all fiddle-de-dee;
They may copy my style till all's blue, but they won't discombobulate me.
Names and metres is anyone's props; but of one thing they don't get the
'ang;
They ain't fly to good patter, old pal, they ain't copped the straight
griffin on slang.

'Tisn't grammar and spellin' makes patter, nor yet snips and snaps of
snide talk.
You may cut a moke out o' pitch-pine, mate, and paint it, but can't make
it walk.
You may chuck a whole Slang Dixionary by chunks in a stodge-pot of chat,
But if 'tisn't _alive_, 'tain't chin-music, but kibosh, and corpsey at
that.

Kerrectness be jolly well jiggered! Street slang isn't Science, dear pal,
And it don't need no "glossery" tips to hinterpret my chat to my gal.
I take wot comes 'andy permiskus, wotever runs sliok and fits in,
And when smugs makes me out a "philolergist,"--snuffers! it do make me
grin!

Still there's fitness, dear boy, and unfitness, and some of these jossers,
jest now,
Who himitate 'ARRY's few letters with weekly slapdabs of bow-wow,
'Ave about as much "fit" in their "slang" as a slop-tailor's six-and-six
bags.
No, Yours Truly writes only to you, a