'TWAS in the raal ould antient times, when there wasn't any probability Of thruth at all in anything, before the world was dhrownded, An' the people spoke in Irish, with a wonderful facility, Before their undherstandin's wor be foreign tongues confounded, It was just about this pariod of the fine ould anshint history Of the murnful earth, that Pat O'Toole, the Irishman was born, He gev the information, In a noisy intimation Of his presence, rather early, on a Whitsun Monday morn, But it's not all out particular, or anything material, To the thruth consarnin' all about the narrative I've spun, The story of his birth, or the mirth Upon this earth, That shook his father's rafthers, with rousin' rounds of fun. * * * * * Whin Pat at last had come of age, It took a hundred years or so, For then the men lived longer, and a minor wasn't free, To slip out of the chancery, An' from his legal infancy, To come into his property, Till the end of a century; Well it was just about that time a floatin' big menagerie, Was bein' built by Noah, in the exhibition thrade,-- He advertised, an' posted it, got editorial puffs on it, Explainin' that 'twould be the best, that ever yet was made. He had it pasted up on walls, dhrawn out in yalla, red, an' green, A lion tamer too Was dhrew, In puce, an' royal blue, A hairy bowld gorilla new, He got from Mossoo Doo Shalloo, An elephant with thrunk, hooroo! The plaziozarus, and emu, A wild hoopoo, A cockatoo, An' the boxin' kangaroo, He had it hoarded round, away From thim that didn't want to pay, An' guarded all be polis, in a private public park, He paid a man that cried "Hooray!" In shouts you'd hear a mile away, "Come in, an' see the menagerie, that's cotch for Noah's Ark, Come look at the wild menagerie, before the flood of wet comes down, For thin ye won't have time to see, ye'll all be dhrownded thin! The glass is goin' down to-day An' sure from far Americay, A blizzard's on the thrack I hear, so lose no time, come in!" [Illustration]