nes is a man who is too topsy-turvy;
Nothing is quite as it should be with Jones,
Angular just where he ought to be curvy,
Padded with flesh where he ought to have bones.

Jones is a freak who attends to the labours,
Small and domestic, that make up the home:
Pays all the calls and leaves cards on the neighbours,
Leaving his wife to be lazy at home.

Does up her dresses without saying, "Blow it";
Pays and forgets to say "Bother" or "Biff";
Asks her to scatter the money and go it,
Beams at her bills when the totals are stiff.

As for his daughters, he gives them their chances,
Rushes them round to reception and fete;
Takes them himself to their concerts and dances;
Always looks pleased when they want to stay late.

Then he has meals which would make you grow thinner,
Often absorbing with infinite glee
Sponge-cakes at breakfast and crumpets at dinner,
Whitstable oysters at five o'clock tea.

Next he loves laughter: that is, to be laughed at--
Every way's right for the man to be rubbed;
Grins when he's sneered at and jeered at and chaffed at;
Wriggles with pleasure whenever he's snubbed.

Fiction, in short, in a million disguises
Never created a crankier clod,
More unaccountably made of surprises,
More topsy-turvily fashioned and odd.

* * * * *

CARPET SALES.

(_In accordance with the current announcements of the leading West-End
houses, and with no reference to Anglo-Russian diplomacy._)

Carpets of Persia fashioned on Orient looms--
Webs which the craftsman's hand with a patient cunning
Wrought through the perfect marriage of warp and woof--
Such as were laid, I imagine, in Bahram's rooms
Where (since their removal) the lion and lizard lie sunning,
And the ass, according to OMAR, stamps his hoof--
Are selling off cheap, it is stated, for money down:
_Oh, have you a remnant of Persia for half-a-crown?_

Carpets of Persia! (None of your home-made stuffs!)
After long years on the loom and infinite labour,
Piled in bales on piratical Arab dhows
At Bunder Abbas, and brought by a crew of roughs
(Each looking more of a cut-throat rip than his neighbour)
Down Ormuz Strait through a series of storms and rows--
Surely they ought to be bargains in London Town?