l
With rage at skinning; but their indignation
Will fade, and they will feed the Official Ghoul
Until the next Quinquennial Valuation.
And then--well, Lord knows what may happen _then_,
Unless--unless--and that is most improbable--
Ratepayers rise _together_--show they're men,
And not mere sheep gregarious, warm-fleeced, robbable.
Meanwhile the Vestry Vultures gorge their fill,
And I am warned--by friends--"_Don't put their backs up!_"
_Their_ backs! And we sing "_Rule Britannia_" still!!
Will _no one_ chaw these fine official Jacks up?

* * * * *

THE KREUTZER SONATA.

One _Pozdnisheff_ by name
Played the matrimonial game;
Pleased by a little curl,
Which round his heart did twirl,
And taken by a jersey
(Exported from the Mersey);
He felt, poor man, half-witted
When he saw how well it fitted!

The mother, with her jersey-clad young daughter,
Asked the lover to a party on the water.
Soft things he now could say
To the maiden all the way,
Till she caught him--who imagined he had caught her!

Now there came a young musician, _Troukachevsky_,
Who, at Petersburg, resided on the Nevsky;
And to play with him the flighty wife was fated
In the famed duet to KREUTZEE dedicated.

The husband who perceived things were not right,
Home suddenly returned at dead of night.
His boots he'd taken off;
He was careful not to cough;
And his plans so well were woven,
That they still performed Beethoven.
But, neither being deaf,
They at last heard _Pozdnisheff_.
Poor wife! He so affrights her,
That she plays no more the _Kreutzer_.

If on each foot he'd had a slipper
To Troukachevsky (who was saved)
The husband would have p'rhaps behaved
Much in the style of Jack the Ripper.
He put to flight the dilettante
(Who hadn't finished half the _andante_),
But feared the servants' mockings
Should they see him in his stockings,
Racing along the corridor:--
Not that he thought it horrid, or
Harsh to transfix him with a dagger,
(He could not bear the fiddler's swagger),
But felt quite sure so droll a figure
Would make his rude domestics snigger.

And now his wife cries out for mercy
(No more she wears that fetching jersey);
And all in vain she pity claims: