t marked in "permanent ink."

The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight
Of these nice little boys dressed all in white:
From his finger he draws
His costly turquoise,
And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws,
Deposits it straight
By the side of his plate,
While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait;
Till, when nobody's dreaming of any such thing,
That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring!

There's a cry and a shout,
And a deuce of a rout,
And nobody seems to know what they're about,
But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out;
The friars are kneeling,
And hunting and feeling
The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling.
The Cardinal drew
Off each plum-coloured shoe,
And left his red stockings exposed to the view;
He peeps and he feels,
In the toes and the heels;
They turn up the dishes, they turn up the plates,
They take up the poker and poke out the grates,
They turn up the rugs,
They examine the mugs--
But no! no such thing;
They can't find |THE RING|!
And the Abbot declared that "when nobody twigged it,
Some rascal or other had popped in and prigged it."

The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,
He called for his candle, his bell, and his book!
In holy anger and pious grief,
He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!
He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed;
From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head;
He cursed him in sleeping, that every night
He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright;
He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking,
He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying;
He cursed him in living, he cursed him in dying!--
Never was heard such a terrible curse!
But, what gave rise
To no little surprise,
Nobody seemed one penny the worse!

The day was gone,
The night came on,
The monks and the friars they searched till dawn;
When the Sacristan saw,
On crumpled claw,
Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw;
No longer gay,
As on yesterday;
His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way;
His pinions drooped, he could hardly stand,
His head was as bald as the palm of your hand;
His eye so dim,
So wasted each limb,
That, heedless of grammar, they all cried