And lo! from every room above, the shrieks of horror rose, From girls in papered tresses, bereft of daylight clothes, And full for twenty minutes by the clock, their cries increase, Of "ho! Police" and "robbers hi!" and "murder ho Police!" The butler fired a pistol shot, the cook discharged a spit! The boots let fly a bootjack, and the footman all his kit! The groom ran down the stable stairs with horsey oathings dire, And a constable came knocking said he "are you's on fire?" He put his bull's eye on him "Ha! well here's a putty case! You needn't hide, behind that putty nose upon your face; I'm on the 'wanted' tack for you a couple of months or three, So don't you be disorderly, move on, and come with me," They put him on his country, and the evidence was queer, But said his Lordship solemnly, "The crime that we have here, Is rare in English jurisprud', a noble drinks, and goes With mask of crape upon his eyes, and putty on his nose, To burgle certain premises, but drink being in his head, Mistook the house, attacked his own, and burgled it instead! Now this is queer; but I have here, a very antient law, And from its context, you will mark, I this deduction draw, That should a man by suicide, attempt to sneak away, From curses that grow thick on him, we make the coward stay, And if a man by putty nose, and mask, and diamond ring, Do burgle his own home, It's just a similar sort of thing, And so unto the upper house, for thy remaining years, I sentence thee!" and with his wig, the judge mopped up his tears. [Illustration] [Illustration: AN ILL WIND BLEW HIM GOOD!] I WAS to the windward walking, Of love and marriage talking, When, zephyr like a feather, Took my topper on its wing And I hollo'd! and I hollo'd! While another fellow followed, It stopped, they came together, With his foot upon the thing! Æsthetic oaths I uttered, A threat for damage muttered, And my popping of the question, Had also lifted wing. * * * * * She's wedded to another, And now I cannot smother, My blessing on that zephyr, And that fugitive top hat, For had I not been checked, My happiness was wrecked, I wouldn't be so rosy To-day, and round and fat. THE GHOST OF HIRAM SMIKE.