Both A and B rehearsal slight— They say they’ll be “all right at night” (They’ve both to go to school yet); C in each act _must_ change her dress, D _will_ attempt to “square the press”; E won’t play Romeo unless His grandmother plays Juliet; F claims all hoydens as her rights (She’s played them thirty seasons); And G must show herself in tights For two convincing reasons— Two very well-shaped reasons! Oh, the man who can drive a theatrical team, With wheelers and leaders in order supreme, Can govern and rule, with a wave of his fin, All Europe and Asia—with Ireland thrown in! OUT OF SORTS WHEN you find you’re a broken-down critter, Who is all of a trimmle and twitter, With your palate unpleasantly bitter, As if you’d just bitten a pill— When your legs are as thin as dividers, And you’re plagued with unruly insiders, And your spine is all creepy with spiders, And you’re highly gamboge in the gill— When you’ve got a beehive in your head, And a sewing machine in each ear, And you feel that you’ve eaten your bed, And you’ve got a bad headache _down here_— When such facts are about, And these symptoms you find In your body or crown— Well, it’s time to look out, You may make up your mind You had better lie down! When your lips are all smeary—like tallow, And your tongue is decidedly yallow, With a pint of warm oil in your sw_a_llow, And a pound of tin-tacks in your chest— When you’re down in the mouth with the vapours, And all over your new Morris papers Black-beetles are cutting their capers, And crawly things never at rest— When you doubt if your head is your own, And you jump when an open door slams— Then you’ve got to a state which is known To the medical world as “jim-jams.” If such symptoms you find In your body or head, They’re not easy to quell— You may make up your mind You are better in bed, For you’re not at all well! HOW IT’S DONE