| |
| YOU 1 see this pebble-stone? It ’s a thing I bought | |
| Of a bit of a chit of a boy i’ the mid o’ the day— | |
| I like to dock the smaller parts-o’-speech, | |
| As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur | |
| (You catch the paronomasia, play o’ words?)— | 5 |
| Did, rather, i’ the pre-Landseerian days. | |
| Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, | |
| And clapt it i’ my poke, and gave for same | |
| By way, to-wit, of barter or exchange— | |
| “Chop” was my snickering dandiprat’s own term— | 10 |
| One shilling and fourpence, current coin o’ the realm. | |
| O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four | |
| Pence, one and fourpence—you are with me, sir?— | |
| What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o’ the clock, | |
| One day (and what a roaring day it was!) | 15 |
| In February, eighteen sixty-nine, | |
| Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei | |
| Hm—hm—how runs the jargon?—being on throne. | |
| |
| Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put, | |
| The basis or substratum—what you will— | 20 |
| Of the impending eighty thousand lines. | |
| “Not much in ’em either,” quoth perhaps simple Hodge. | |
| But there ’s a superstructure. Wait a bit. | |
| |
| Mark first the rationale of the thing: | |
| Hear logic rival and levigate the deed. | 25 |
| That shilling—and for matter o’ that, the pence— | |
| I had o’ course upo’ me—wi’ me, say— | |
| (Mecum ’s the Latin, make a note o’ that) | |
| When I popped pen i’ stand, blew snout, scratched ear, | |
| Sniffed—tch!—at snuff-box; tumbled up, he-heed, | 30 |
| Haw-hawed (not hee-hawed, that ’s another guess thing:) | |
| Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door, | |
| I shoved the door ope wi’ my omoplat; | |
| And in vestibulo, i’ the entrance-hall, | |
| Donned galligaskins, antigropelos, | 35 |
| And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves, | |
| One on and one a-dangle i’ my hand. | |
| And ombrifuge, (Lord love you!) case o’ rain, | |
| I flopped forth, ’s buddikins! on my own ten toes, | |
| (I do assure you there be ten of them,) | 40 |
| And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale | |
| To find myself o’ the sudden i’ front o’ the boy. | |
| Put case I hadn’t ’em on me, could I ha’ bought | |
| This sort-o’-kind-o’-what-you-might-call toy, | |
| This pebble-thing, o’ the boy-thing? Q. E. D. | 45 |
| That ’s proven without aid from mumping Pope, | |
| Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal, | |
| (Isn’t it, old Fatchaps? You ’re in Euclid now.) | |
| So, having the shilling—having i’ fact a lot— | |
| And pence and halfpence, ever so many o’ them, | 50 |
| I purchased, as I think I said before, | |
| The pebble (lapis, lapidis,—di,—dem,—de,— | |
| What nouns ’crease short i’ the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?) | |
| O’ the boy, a bare-legged beggarly son of a gun, | |
| For one and fourpence. Here we are again. | 55 |
| Now Law steps in, big-wigged, voluminous-jawed; | |
| Investigates and re-investigates. | |
| Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head. | |
| Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case. | |
| |
| At first the coin was mine, the chattel his. | 60 |
| But now (by virtue of the said exchange | |
| And barter) vice versa all the coin, | |
| Per juris operationem, vests | |
| I’ the boy and his assigns till ding o’ doom; | |
| (In sæcula sæculo-o-o-orum; | 65 |
| I think I hear the Abbate mouth out that) | |
| To have and hold the same to him and them … | |
| Confer some idiot on Conveyancing, | |
| Whereas the pebble and every part thereof, | |
| And all that appertaineth thereunto, | 70 |
| Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would, or should, | |
| (Subandi cætera—clap me to the close— | |
| For what ’s the good of law in a case o’ the kind?) | |
| Is mine to all intents and purposes. | |
| This settled, I resume the thread o’ the tale. | 75 |
| |
| Now for a touch o’ the vendor’s quality. | |
| He says a gen’lman bought a pebble of him, | |
| (This pebble i’ sooth, sir, which I hold i’ my hand)— | |
| And paid for ’t, like a gen’lman, on the nail. | |
| “Did I o’ercharge him a ha’penny? Devil a bit. | 80 |
| Fiddlestick’s end! Get out, you blazing ass! | |
| Gabble o’ the goose. Don’t bugaboo-baby me! | |
| Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what ’s the odds?” | |
| —There ’s the transaction viewed, i’ the vendor’s light. | |
| |
| Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by, | 85 |
| With her three frowsy-browsy brats o’ babes, | |
| The scum o’ the kennel, cream o’ the filth-heap—Faugh? | |
| Aie, aie, aie, aie! [Greek], | |
| (’Stead which we blurt out Hoighty-toighty now)— | |
| And the baker and candlestick-maker, and Jack and Gill, | 90 |
| Bleared Goody this and queasy Gaffer that. | |
| Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first. | |
| |
| He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad | |
| A stone, and pay for it rite, on the square, | |
| And carry it off per saltum, jauntily, | 95 |
| Propria quæ maribus, gentleman’s property now | |
| (Agreeable to the law explained above), | |
| In proprium usum, for his private ends. | |
| The boy he chucked a brown i’ the air, and bit | |
| I’ the face the shilling: heaved a thumping-stone | 100 |
| At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by, | |
| (And hit her, dead as nail i’ post o’ door,) | |
| Then abiit—what ’s the Ciceronian phrase?— | |
| Excessit, evasit, erupit,—off slogs boy; | |
| Off in three flea-skips. Hactenus, so far, | 105 |
| So good, tam bene. Bene, satis, male,— | |
| Where was I? who said what of one in a quag? | |
| I did once hitch the syntax into verse: | |
| Verbum personale, a verb personal, | |
| Concordat,—ay, “agrees,” old Fatchaps—cum | 110 |
| Nominativo, with its nominative, | |
| Genere, i’ point o’ gender, numero, | |
| O’ number, et persona, and person. Ut, | |
| Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sun, et, and, | |
| Montes umbrantur, snuffs out mountains. Pah! | 115 |
| Excuse me, sir, I think I ’m going mad. | |
| You see the trick on ’t though, and can yourself | |
| Continue the discourse ad libitum. | |
| It takes up about eighty thousand lines, | |
| A thing imagination boggles at: | 120 |
| And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands, | |
| Extend from here to Mesopotamy. | |
