With pepsine pills and liver pads is their consumption fraught, Oh! oh! my boy, my pauper boy! Take my advice, ’tis best shun All such tempting tasty things, tho’ nice beyond all question, Unless you wish like me to feel the pangs of indigestion! One, who had ever made me long――a muffin man and old―― I watched into a public-house, he called for whisky cold, And for one moment left his stock within green baize enrolled. I crept up to them, thinking what an appetite I’d got, I gloated o’er them lying there elastic and all hot; I thought of butter laid on thick, and then I prigged the lot! I took them home, I toasted them, p’raps upwards of a score, And never had so fine a feast on luscious fare before, ‘And now,’ I said, ‘I’ll go to bed, and dream of eating more.’ All night I lay uneasily, and rolled from side to side, At first without one wink of sleep, no matter how I tried; And then I dreamt I was a ’bus, and gurgled ‘Full inside!’ I was a ’bus by nightmares drawn on to some giddy crest, Now launched like lightning through the air, now stop’d, and now compressed; I felt a million muffin men were seated on my chest! I heard their bells――their horrid bells――in sound as loud as trumpets, Oh, curses on ye, spongy tribe! Ye cruffins and ye mumpets! I must be mad! I mean to say ye muffins and ye crumpets! Then came a chill like Wenham ice; then hot as hottest steam; I could not move a single limb! I could not even scream! You pauper brat, remember that――all this was but a dream!” The boy gazed on his troubled brow, from which big drops were oozing, And for the moment all respect for his dread function losing, Made this remark, “Well, blow me tight, our Beadle’s been a-boozing!” That very week, before the beak, they brought that beadle burly; He pleaded guilty in a tone dyspeptically surly, And he lives still at Pentonville with hair not long or curly! ARTHUR SHIRLEY. [Illustration] Bob shave great GEORGE our King! Make him look just the thing! Bob shave the King! Razor and razor rag, Powder and powder bag, Hold up your chin, my Lad, Bob shave the KING! ―――― THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER.