And Iron and Steel expressed surprise, The needles opened their well-drilled eyes, The pen-knives felt “shut up,” no doubt, The scissors declared themselves “cut out,” The kettles they boiled with rage, ’tis said, While every nail went off its head, And hither and thither began to roam, Till a hammer came up—and drove it home, While this magnetic Peripatetic Lover he lived to learn, By no endeavour, Can Magnet ever Attract a Silver Churn! THE FAMILY FOOL OH! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon, If you listen to popular rumour; From morning to night he’s so joyous and bright, And he bubbles with wit and good humour! He’s so quaint and so terse, both in prose and in verse; Yet though people forgive his transgression, There are one or two rules that all Family Fools Must observe, if they love their profession. There are one or two rules, Half-a-dozen, maybe, That all family fools, Of whatever degree, Must observe if they love their profession. If you wish to succeed as a jester, you’ll need To consider each person’s auricular: What is all right for B would quite scandalise C (For C is so very particular); And D may be dull, and E’s very thick skull Is as empty of brains as a ladle; While F is F sharp, and will cry with a carp, That he’s known your best joke from his cradle! When your humour they flout, You can’t let yourself go; And it _does_ put you out When a person says, “Oh! I have known that old joke from my cradle!” If your master is surly, from getting up early (And tempers are short in the morning), An inopportune joke is enough to provoke Him to give you, at once, a month’s warning. Then if you refrain, he is at you again, For he likes to get value for money: He’ll ask then and there, with an insolent stare, “If you know that you’re paid to be funny?” It adds to the tasks Of a merryman’s place, When your principal asks, With a scowl on his face, If you know that you’re paid to be funny?