No peccant humour in a gander Brought havoc on her little folks,-- No poaching cook--a frying pander To appetite,--destroyed their yolks,-- Beneath her very eyes, Od’ rot ’em! They went like plummets to the bottom. The thing was strange--a contradiction It seemed of nature and her works! For little ducks, beyond conviction, Should float without the help of corks: Great Johnson it bewildered him! To hear of ducks that could not swim. Poor Mrs. Bond! what could she do But change the breed--and she tried divers, Which dived as all seemed born to do; No little ones were e’er survivors-- Like those that copy gems, I’m thinking, They all were given to die-sinking! In vain their downy coats were shorn: They floundered still,--Batch after batch went! The little fools seemed only born And hatched for nothing but a hatchment! Whene’er they launched--oh sight of wonder! Like fires the water “got them under!” No woman ever gave their lucks A better chance than Mrs. Bond did; At last quite out of heart and ducks, She gave her pond up and desponded; For Death among the water lilies, Cried “_Duc_ ad me,” to all her dillies. But though resolved to breed no more, She brooded often on this riddle-- Alas! twas darker than before! At last, about the summer’s middle, What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or none did, To clear the matter up the sun did! The thirsty Sirius, dog-like, drank So deep his furious tongue to cool, The shallow waters sank and sank, And lo, from out the wasted pool, Too hot to hold them any longer, There crawled some eels as big as conger! I wish all folks would look a bit, In such a case below the surface; But when the eels were caught and split By Mrs. Bond, just think of _her_ face, In each inside at once to spy A ducking turned to giblet pie! The sight at once explained the case. Making the Dame look rather silly, The tenants of that _Eely Place_ Had found the way to _Pick a dilly_, And so by under-water suction, Had wrought the little ducks’ abduction. [Illustration: A POACHER.] [Illustration: TOO COLD TO BEAR.] AN ASSENT TO THE SUMMUT OF MOUNT BLANK. It was on the 1st of Augst,--I remember by my wags cumming dew, and I wanted to be riz,--that Me and master maid our minds up to the Mounting. I find Master as oppend an acount with the Keep Sack--but as that is a cut abov, and rit in by only Lords and Laddies, I am reduced to a Peer in the pagis of the Comick Anual--Mr H giving leaves.