med by press,
And no one had ever a chance to guess,
Beholding this hero
Who ruled like a Nero,
His valor was zero,
Or something less.

_The Moral:_ And still from Nice to Calais
Discretion's the better part of--
--_valets!_

_How a Beauty was Waked and Her Suitor was Suited_

Albeit wholly penniless,
Prince Charming wasn't any less
Conceited than a Croesus or a modern millionaire:
Though often in necessity,
No one would ever guess it. He
Was candidly insolvent, and he frankly didn't care!
Of the many debts he made
Not a one was ever paid,
But no one ever pressed him to refund the borrowed gold:
While he recklessly kept spending,
People gladly kept on lending,
For the fact they knew a title
Was requital
Twenty-fold!
(He lived in sixteen sixty-three,
This smooth unblushing article,
Since when, as far as I can see,
Men haven't changed a particle!)

In Charming's principality
There was a wild locality,
Composed of sombre forest, and of steep and frowning crags,
Of pheasant and of rabbit, too;
And here it was his habit to
Go hunting with his courtiers in the keen pursuit of stags.
But the charger that he rode
So mercurially strode
That the prince on one occasion left the others in the lurch,
And the falling darkness found him,
With no vassals left around him,
Near a building like an abbey,
Or a shabby
Ruined church.
His Highness said: "I'll ring the bell
And stay till morning in it!" (He
Took Hobson's choice, for no hotel
There was in the vicinity.)

His ringing was so vehement
That any one could see he meant
To suffer no refusal, but, in spite of all the din,
There was no answer audible,
And so, with courage laudable,
His Royal Highness turned the knob, and stoutly entered in.
Then he strode across the court,
But he suddenly stopped short
When he passed within the castle by a massive oaken door:
There were courtiers without number,
But they all were plunged in slumber,
The prince's ear delighting
By uniting
In a snore.
The prince remarked: "This must be Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania!"
(And so was born the jest that's still
The comic journal's mania!)

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