Chapter I: WAS on the carpet kneeling,

And fondly, and with feeling,
I pressed her metacarpus,
To my osculating lip,
When flexor,
And extensor,
Of stern Parental censor,
Incontinent did greet me,
And took me near the hip!
I rolled into the fender,
With broken silk suspender,
And motive movement sharp, as
Her Pater gave the tip!
He didn't back the winner,
For sport was not his grip.

The above brief but touching confession of disastrous failure, recorded by Timothy Pipkins,--a sporting student of St. Jago's Hospital,--is indicative of the Nemesis from an offended fate, that frequently foils the improvident hunter of matrimonial adventure.

TIM DOOLIN was a well known jock, an active sprite, and light
and trim,
And time there was, that jocks did funk, to mount, and run the race
with him.
He won by length, he won by head, he saved the race by nose, and ear,
Till all the jocks, around their pints, exclaimed the thing was
devilish queer.
But fortune is a gay coquette; by fickle fortune, Doolin lost,
Till every one who backed him, soon did find him out a fraud
and frost.
I've seen him lose at Punchestown, I've seen him last, at
Baldoyle too,
At Fairyhouse I've seen him fall--his colours then were black
and blue.
He stood and scratched his head amain, beside the stable door one
night;
He had been drinking tints of malt, and felt as he were almost tight.
A race was on to run next day; he totted up his chance to win,
When turning thro' the stable-door, he saw a gentleman within!

He thought the thing extremely strange, and asked the man, why he
was there,
And stoutly gave the hint, that he was there, to sneak, and dose
the mare.
The gentleman, he laughed a laugh. "I've backed the beast myself,
by gum!
And you must win, or I will be the loser of a tidy sum."

"Well, look," said Doolin, "pon me sowl, I have me doubts that
she's in form."
The stranger glared at Doolin, and with voice, as of a rising storm,
Accused the jock of practices, that were not meet for honest men,
And asked him how he won so oft, and could not pass the post again?
"Well, yis, yer honor, 'pon me faith, it puzzles me the same as you,
That I can't jerk the horse ahead, and win as once I used to do.
I never drink before the race. I always pray before I mount:
And yet I find it's all the same; my prayers have come to no
account!"

"I used to curse and swear, but, ah, bedad, my swearing days
are done!"
"Then how on earth could you expect to be the man who could get on?"
"I may not dare to curse and swear. I have a rich, religious aunt,
I'm in her will, and I would lose the fortune if I did, and shan't.
She often heard me curse and swear; but warning me one day, says she:
'If you go on to curse and swear, I'll have no more to do with thee!
I've made my will, and left you all my worldly goods, and money, too;
I've got it written, signed and sealed, so you be careful what
you do!'
I promised her, upon my oath, that I would neither curse nor swear,
And I have kept my word, and I will keep my word to her, so there!
She lent to me a cockatoo, and cautioned me, I must not lack,
To treat him well; he's in the room I occupy, till she comes back."

"Ah, that, indeed. Well, here's a tip: when in the morning
you get up,
Keep cursing all the time you dress, and swear at night,
before you sup,
By this no human ear will catch the oathings that will make
you light,
And take a load from off your mind, and you will win the
race--good night."

That very night when he went home, he slyly locked the bedroom door,
And up and down around the room he scattered curses, and he swore,
He cursed before, he cursed behind, he cursed until his face was red,
By dint of cursing, and at last he stripped, and tumbled into bed.
Next morning many oaths he made, and sandwiched them with many
a curse,
That sounded weird, and wry, and strange; his oathings they could
not possibly be worse.
He cursed because he had to rise, he cursed to leave the bed so nice,
And warm, and soft, he cursed because the water was as cold as ice.
He cursed around the basin-stand, he cursed the water jug, alas!
The towel and the soap he cursed, with oath that almost broke the
glass.
He cursed a button that was loose, he cursed the thread and needle,
new,
He cursed the irritating starch, he cursed his washerwoman, too.
He curbed his braces--they were tied with bits of string, that
broke in twain,
He fixed them with a pin; it stuck into his spine--he cursed again;
He cursed the postman for his knock--'twas by his tailor he was sent;
He cursed the landlady who brought the bill; and asked him for
the rent.
Before, behind, above, below, at right or left, he was not loath
To drop a detonating curse, or fling an alternating oath.
He cursed the razor and the strop, he cursed the wart upon his nose,
He cursed his hair that wouldn't grow, he cursed the corns upon
his toes.
He cursed a stud and button-hole that was too big; and in the street,
He saw a burly constable, and cursed the man upon his beat,
He cursed the helmet on his head, the number on his collar, too;
He cursed the stripe upon his arm, his mittens, and his suit of blue.
He cursed his baton right and left, he cursed it also upside down,
He cursed him to the county gaol and back again, and into town.
He cursed the lining of his sleeve, a bottle in his pocket--who
Had put it there he could not tell--he cursed his aunt, her cockatoo.
He cursed the laces of his boots, the cockatoo he cursed again,
Again he swore, unlocked the door, and gaily started for the train.

Hurrah! he won the race that day, and everything for him went right,
And surreptitiously he cursed and swore, and cursed again that night.
A painful shocking thing, that men should stoop to acts like this,
for fame or pelf.
Thro' all my friends there's not a man would act so shocking but
himself.
His calender grew bright again with fortune's sunlight o'er it cast,
But there must be an end to such, and retribution comes at last.
His aunt returned to town again; he gave her back her cockatoo,
'Twere better he had slain him first; it's what, I think, and so
will you.
One day a mortuary note did come--alas! his aunt was dead!
He buried her with decent haste, and then her latest will was read.
But by that testament, he found that he had not been left her purse,
It intimated this, that he had taught her cockatoo to curse!
It intimated this, that she thro' that, had met her death, alas;
And in a codicil expressed a wish they'd send the bird to grass.

No mortal eye but his, beheld the deed he then essayed to do--
'Twas murder! for he wrung the neck of his dead aunt, her cockatoo,
No mortal eye beheld the deed; but things again with him went queer,
Till one day looking down the street, he saw a stranger prowling
near.
The man who told him thus to swear, 'twas on a dark November eve,
He knew that stranger held a secret stone for him inside his sleeve;
He knew that he had run a score of heavy debt, was due for sin,
And darting back, he closed the door. Said he to Bridget "I'm not in.
Just say that I am out," said he, and quickly up the stairs he flew,
The stranger knocked. "Ah, let me see," and up the stairs he
mounted, too.
The servant sneaked the key-hole then, and saw a struggle on the bed,
Then ran below--"Mavrone, asthore, come up, agrah, the lodger's
dead!"

* * * * *

The moral is of gentlemen you do not know, you should beware:
You should not use your bedroom, for a hiding-place, to curse, and
swear.
To curse a harmless constable upon his beat, is even worse;
'Twas he who caught the jurymen, who gave the verdict on his corse.
That shocking room is haunted now; it may not raise a shock in you,
But every dark November eve, there comes a shrouded cockatoo,
And gliding in his pallid shirt, a wretched spectre doth rehearse,
The record of his oathings dire! the cockatoo then shrieks a curse!
The man of easy habits then will see the deadly deed anew,
Of how the neck was wrung by him, who slew his aunt, her cockatoo.
The man of easy habits then, will see the evil sprite of gloom,
Come prowling for his guilty soul, and bear it down the trap of doom.

The landlady can never make the lodgers in that room content,
They never stay, beyond the day that she has asked them for the rent,
But men are not so wicked now; they will not swear an oath for pelf.
They're much about the same as you--almost exactly like myself.

A GUN SOLO.

BY a lonely dried up fountain,
In a purple Irish mountain,
My talk was interesting,
With a female of that spot,
When she sprang from off my knees;
For rasping thro' the trees,
A bullet stopped our jesting,
I started at the shot!

"It's my husband's gun!" she murmured,
I sauntered from the spot!!