Twelve months of measured pacing, had gone since I began; I hadn't run a prisoner, the time was all I ran; And when the year had vanished, said the sergeant, "Halt, O'Brine! You haven't run a prisoner, you'll have to draw the line." [Illustration] That night I went and drew it--'twas peeping through a blind!-- I got some information, of suspicious work behind. The act I had my eye on, was a woman with some lead, I watched her squeeze a sixpence, in wad of toughened bread. A chance of some distinction was here, I could not shirk, I peeled my worsted mittens, and bravely went to work. I double somersaulted the window--'twas a do I picked up in Australia, from a foreign kangaroo. [Illustration] I lighted on the table, not quite upon my feet, But, ah! her guilty terror was evidence complete. "Wot's this," said I, impounding the lead, and bread, and tin; "I've caught you in the act, ma'am, I'll have to run you in." They put her on her trial, and the evidence began, I swore my information, like a polis and a man; I showed a silver sixpence, with a hole in it defined, And showed them how I telescoped my presence thro' the blind. [Illustration] The jury found her guilty, the judge condemned her then, To go into retirement, where she couldn't coin again. "O, sure I wasn't coinin', mavourneen judge asthore, 'Twas the sixpence of my sweetheart that's on a foreign shore. A lucky one he gave me, he stayed away too long. I wanted for to change it, and thought it wasn't wrong To take its little photograph, for the sake of bein' his wife." Said the Judge, "It doesn't matter, I've sentenced you for life!" I saw her disappearing, from my eye behind the dock, O, ham an fowl! it's awful, to think upon the shock. I staggered with my baton to the sergeant, and I swore, He had made me run too many, I'd seek a foreign shore. [Illustration] [Illustration: A Wall Flower Sonnet.] SHE was charming, full of grace, A hostess, you could place In a higher sphere, than that in which she shone, "I've a partner you should meet, A girl, extremely sweet!" And for the dance she always put me on, But meetings of regret, Were maidens that I met, My hostess was a gay designing one, Her wallflowers were too plain, The waltz did give me pain, I took a B. and S. and I was gone! She played with me, too often put me on, My hostess was a gay designing one! [Illustration] [Illustration: PARADOXICAL WORDS]