| |
| | Lest you should think this story true |
| I merely mention I |
| Evolved it lately. ’Tis a most |
| Unmitigated misstatement. |
NOW Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order, | |
| And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border, | |
| To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught | |
| His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught. | |
| |
| And Love had made him very sage, as Nature made her fair; | 5 |
| So Cupid and Apollo linked, per heliograph, the pair. | |
| At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise— | |
| At e’en, the dying sunset bore her husband’s homilies. | |
| |
| He warned her ’gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold, | |
| As much as ’gainst the blandishments paternal of the old; | 10 |
| But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs) | |
| That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs. | |
| |
| ’Twas General Bangs, with Aide and Staff, who tittupped on the way, | |
| When they beheld a heliograph tempestuously at play. | |
| They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and burnt— | 15 |
| So stopped to take the message down—and this is what they learnt— | |
| |
| “Dash dot dot dot, dot dash, dot dash dot” twice. The General swore. | |
| “Was ever General Officer addressed as ‘dear’ before? | |
| “‘My Love,’ i’ faith! ‘My Duck,’ Gadzooks! ‘My darling popsy-wop!’ | |
| “Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, who is on the mountain-top?” | 20 |
| |
| The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the gilded Staff were still, | |
| As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that message from the hill; | |
| For clear as summer lightning-flare, the husband’s warning ran:— | |
| “Don’t dance or ride with General Bangs—a most immoral man.” | |
| |
| [At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise— | 25 |
| But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.] | |
| With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife | |
| Some interesting details of the General’s private life. | |
| |
| The artless Aide-de-camp was mute, the shining Staff were still, | |
| And red and ever redder grew the General’s shaven gill. | 30 |
| And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not):— | |
| “I think we’ve tapped a private line. Hi! Threes about there! Trot!” | |
| |
| All honour unto Bangs, for ne’er did Jones thereafter know | |
| By word or act official who read off that helio; | |
| But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mooltan | 35 |
| They know the worthy General as “that most immoral man.” | |
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