After a fortnight’s cruise, we put into port one day, And off on leave for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE, And after a long long week had passed (and it seemed like a life), LIEUTENANT BELAYE returned to his ship with a fair young wife! He up, and he says, says he, “O crew of the _Hot Cross Bun_, Here is the wife of my heart, for the Church has made us one!” And as he uttered the word, the crew went out of their wits, And all fell down in so many separate fainting-fits. And then their hair came down, or off, as the case might be, And lo! the rest of the crew were simple girls, like me, Who all had fled from their homes in a sailor’s blue array, To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE. It’s strange to think that _I_ should ever have loved young men, But I’m speaking of ten years past—I was barely sixty then, And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I trow! And poor POLL PINEAPPLE’S eyes have lost their lustre now! THE TWO OGRES GOOD children, list, if you’re inclined, And wicked children too— This pretty ballad is designed Especially for you. Two ogres dwelt in Wickham Wold— Each _traits_ distinctive had: The younger was as good as gold, The elder was as bad. A wicked, disobedient son Was JAMES M’ALPINE, and A contrast to the elder one, Good APPLEBODY BLAND. M’ALPINE—brutes like him are few— In greediness delights, A melancholy victim to Unchastened appetites. Good, well-bred children every day He ravenously ate,— All boys were fish who found their way Into M’ALPINE’S net: Boys whose good breeding is innate, Whose sums are always right; And boys who don’t expostulate When sent to bed at night; And kindly boys who never search The nests of birds of song; And serious boys for whom, in church, No sermon is too long. Contrast with JAMES’S greedy haste And comprehensive hand, The nice discriminating taste Of APPLEBODY BLAND. BLAND only eats bad boys, who swear— Who _can_ behave, but _don’t_— Disgraceful lads who say “don’t care,” And “shan’t,” and “can’t,” and “won’t.” Who wet their shoes and learn to box, And say what isn’t true, Who bite their nails and jam their frocks, And make long noses too; Who kick a nurse’s aged shin, And sit in sulky mopes; And boys who twirl poor kittens in Distracting zoëtropes. But JAMES, when he was quite a youth, Had often been to school, And though so bad, to tell the truth, He wasn’t quite a fool. At logic few with him could vie; To his peculiar sect He could propose a fallacy With singular effect. So, when his Mentors said, “Expound— Why eat good children—why?” Upon his Mentors he would round With this absurd reply: