As you would say: and a bad book at that, A maundering, kiss-mammy book--The Hunch-back's End Or The Camel-Keeper's Reward--would be its title. I froth and bubble like a new-broached cask. No wonder you look glum, for all your grin. What makes you mope? You've naught to growse about. You've got no hump. Your body's brave and straight-- So shapely even that you can afford To trick it in fantastic shapelessness, Knowing that there's a clean-limbed man beneath Preposterous pantaloons and purple cats. I would have been a poet, if I could: But better than shaping poems 'twould have been To have had a comely body and clean limbs Obedient to my bidding. Merry Andrew: I missed a hoop This afternoon. Gentleman John: You missed a hoop? You mean ... Merry Andrew: That I am done, used up, scrapped, on the shelf, Out of the running--only that, no more. Gentleman John: Well, I've been missing hoops my whole life long; Though, when I come to think of it, perhaps There's little consolation to be chewed From crumbs that I can offer. Merry Andrew: I've not missed A hoop since I was six. I'm forty-two. This is the first time that my body's failed me: But 'twill not be the last. And ... Gentleman John: Such is life! You're going to say. You see I've got it pat, Your jaded wheeze. Lord, what a wit I'ld make If I'd a set grin painted on my face. And such is life, I'ld say a hundred times, And each time set the world aroar afresh At my original humour. Missed a hoop! Why, man alive, you've naught to grumble at. I've boggled every hoop since I was six. I'm fifty-five; and I've run round a ring Would make this potty circus seem a pinhole. I wasn't born to sawdust. I'd the world For circus ... Merry Andrew: It's no time for crowing now. I know a gentleman, and take on trust The silver spoon and all. My teeth were cut Upon a horseshoe: and I wasn't born To purple and fine linen--but to sawdust, To sawdust, as you say--brought up on sawdust. I've had to make my daily bread of sawdust: Ay, and my children's,--children's, that's the rub, As Shakespeare says ... Gentleman John: Ah, there you go again! What a rare wit to set the ring aroar-- As Shakespeare says! Crowing? A gentleman? Man, didn't you say you'd never missed a hoop? It's only gentlemen who miss no hoops, Clean livers, easy lords of life who take Each obstacle at a leap, who never fail. You are the gentleman. Merry Andrew: