With him I love Swiftly time would move; _Allegro._ With his cigar, And my guitar, We'd smoke and play The livelong day, Merrily, merrily! Puff--puff--puff, Tang-a-tang, tang-a-tang? 3. When he's not near me, _Adagio, et O! of life I'm weary-- con molto The world is dreary-- espressione._ Mystic spirits of song, Wreathed with cypress, come along! And hear me! hear me! Singing, Heigho, heigho-- _Teneramente._ Tootle, tootle, too, A--lackaday! Such were the tender and melting strains which this fair creature (her voice a _little_ reedy and squeaking, it must be owned) poured into the sensitive ear of Titmouse; and such are the strains by means of which, many and many a Miss Tag-rag has captivated many and many a Titmouse; so that sentimental compositions of this sort have become deservedly popular, and do honor to our musical and poetical character as a nation. I said that it was on the occasion of a dinner at Satin Lodge, that Mr. Titmouse and Mr. Gammon were favored by hearing Miss Tag-rag's voice, accompanying her guitar; for when Mr. Tag-rag had sounded Mr. Gammon, and found that both he and Titmouse would be only too proud and happy to partake of his hospitality, they were invited. A very crack affair it was, (though I have not time to describe it)--given on a far more splendid scale than Mr. Tag-rag had ever ventured upon before. He brought a bottle of _champagne_ all the way from town with his own hands, and kept it nice and cool in the kitchen cistern for three days beforehand; and there was fish, soup, roast mutton, and roast ducks, roast fowls, peas, cabbage, cauliflowers, potatoes, vegetable marrows; there was an apple-pie, a plum-pudding, custards, creams, jelly, and a man to wait, hired from the tavern at the corner of the hill. It had not occurred to them to provide themselves with champagne glasses, so they managed as well as they could with the common ones--all but Titmouse, who with a sort of fashionable recklessness, to show how little he thought of champagne, poured it out into his _tumbler_, which he two-thirds filled, and then drank off its contents at a draught! Mr. Tag-rag trying to disguise the inward spasm it occasioned him, by a very grievous smile. He and Mrs. Tag-rag exchanged anxious looks; the whole of their sole bottle of champagne was gone already--almost as soon as it had been opened!