It were all one to me if a kitchen-maid You had half-way divested of something else. What sort of stuff is this half-way jargon, Saving your presence? Who, think you, would care To throw away dearly-bought fuel, in times Like these, on such spiritless rubbish as this? There now, don’t be enraged; ’twas your sins that I scoffed at; And excuse my speaking my mind so bluntly.— Come, my dearest friend, banish this stuff from your head,[142] And get used to the thought of the casting-ladle. What would you gain if I lodged you and boarded you? Consider; I know you’re a sensible man. Well, you’d keep your memory; that’s so far true;— But the retrospect o’er recollection’s domain Would be, both for heart and for intellect, What the Swedes call “Mighty poor sport”[143] indeed. You have nothing either to howl or to smile about; No cause for rejoicing nor yet for despair; Nothing to make you feel hot or cold; Only a sort of a something to fret over. PEER. It is written: It’s never so easy to know Where the shoe is tight that one isn’t wearing. THE LEAN ONE. Very true; I have—praise be to so-and-so!— No occasion for more than a single odd shoe. But it’s lucky we happened to speak of shoes; It reminds me that I must be hurrying on;— I’m after a roast that I hope will prove fat; So I really mustn’t stand gossiping here.— PEER. And may one inquire, then, what sort of sin-diet The man has been fattened on? THE LEAN ONE. I understand He has been himself both by night and by day, And that, after all, is the principal point. PEER. Himself? Then do such folks belong to your parish? THE LEAN ONE.