Take notice, lawyers all. For many a year Your cheerful tribe (I mean to stint your cheer) When hired to cheat the gallows of its prey Or turn the law-dogs' noses all astray From a thief's track, and take of what he stole The lion's share--that is to say, the whole-- Have deemed it right his grievance to redress With fine philippics on the brutal press That persecutes a blameless soul--alas, How angels suffer from the felon class! Now mark ye, lawless lawyers, if ye still Shall think it well to serve a client ill, Accept his money on the false pretense That slander of accusers is defense, Deal out damnation to sustain his hope And handle without gloves all things but soap, I 'm for retaliation. Hear me swear, With head uncovered and with hand in air, By that sole deity whom lawyers hold In pious reverence, Almighty Gold (Whose name, with deep hypocrisy, they spell, Pronounce and take in vain without the l) My scourging weapon shall remain unstirred, Gracing the pinion of its parent bird. I 'll let you struggle for the blackguard's wreath And tear your tongues to rags upon your teeth! LAZINESS, n. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree. LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers--particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities. Hail, holy Lead!--of human feuds the great And universal arbiter; endowed With penetration to pierce any cloud Fogging the field of controversial hate, And with a swift, inevitable, straight, Searching precision find the unavowed But vital point. Thy judgment, when allowed By the chirurgeon, settles the debate. O useful metal!--were it not for thee We'd grapple one another's ears alway: But when we hear thee buzzing like a bee We, like old Muhlenberg, "care not to stay." And when the quick have run away like pullets Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets. LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious. LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear, and his faith in your patience. LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears. LEONINE, adj. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox: The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades. Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"