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And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,
And the cast from a fist ("not, alas! mine,
But my master's, the Tipton Slasher")

And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,
And a satin shoe used for cigar-case,

And the chamois-horns (“shot in the Chablais ")

And prints Rarey drumming on Cruiser,

And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser,

And the little edition of Rabelais :

Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets, May saunter up close to examine it,

And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it, "But the eyes are half out of their sockets; That hair's not so bad, where the gloss is, But they've made the girl's nose a proboscis: Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy! What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?"

All that I own is a print,
An etching, a mezzotint;
"T is a study, a fancy, a fiction,
Yet a fact (take my conviction)

Because it has more than a hint
Of a certain face, I never

Saw elsewhere touch or trace of

In women I've seen the face of:
Just an etching, and, so far, clever.

I keep my prints, an imbroglio,
Fifty in one portfolio.

When somebody tries my claret,
We turn round chairs to the fire,
Chirp over days in a garret,
Chuckle o'er increase of salary,
Taste the good fruits of our leisure,
Talk about pencil and lyre,

And the National Portrait Gallery:

Then I exhibit my treasure.

After we've turned over twenty,

And the debt of wonder my crony owes

Is paid to my Marc Antonios,

He stops me "Festina lentè!

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What's that sweet thing there, the etching?"

How my waistcoat-strings want stretching,

How my cheeks grow red as tomatoes,

How my heart leaps! But hearts, after leaps, ache.

"By the by, you must take, for a keepsake,

That other, you praised, of Volpato's."

The fool! would he try a flight further and say

He never saw, never before to-day,
What was able to take his breath away,
A face to lose youth for, to occupy age

With the dream of, meet death with, why, I'll not

engage

But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage,

I should toss him the thing's self-❝"T is only a dupli

cate,

A thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!"

MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM."

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