o limping and so careless they
About distinct enunciation,
Often I don't know what they say.

The other night an able actor,
Declaiming of some lines I heard,
I hailed a public benefactor,
As I distinguished every word.

But, oh! the subtle disappointment!
Thorn on the celebrated rose
And fly within the well-known ointment!
(Allusions everybody knows.)

Came forth the words exact and snappy.
And as I sat there, that P.M.,
I mused, "Was I not just as happy
When I could not distinguish them?"

"So Shines a Good Deed in a
Naughty World"

There was a man in our town, and he was wondrous rich;
He gave away his millions to the colleges and sich;
And people cried: "The hypocrite! He ought to understand
The ones who really need him are the children of this land."

When Andrew Croesus built a home for children who were sick,
The people said they rather thought he did it as a trick,
And writers said: "He thinks about the drooping girls and boys,
But what about conditions with the men whom he employs?"

There was a man in our town who said that he would share
His profits with his laborers, for that was only fair,
And people said: "Oh, isn't he the shrewd and foxy gent?
It cost him next to nothing for that free advertisement."

There was a man in our town who had the perfect plan
To do away with poverty and other ills of man,
But he feared the public jeering, and the folks who would defame him,
So he never told the plan he had, and I can hardly blame him.

Vain Words

Humble, surely, mine ambition;
It is merely to construct
Some occasion or condition
When I may say "usufruct."

Earnest am I and assiduous;
Yet I'm certain that I shan't amount
To a lot till I use "viduous,"
"Indiscerptible," and "tantamount."

On the Importance of Being
Earnest

"Gentle Jane was as good as gold,"
To borrow a line from Mr. Gilbert;
She hated War with a hate untold,
She was a pacifistic filbert.
If you said "Perhaps"--she'd leave the hall.
You couldn't argue with her at all.

"Teasing Tom was a very bad boy,"
(Pardon my love for a good quotation).
To talk of war was his only joy,
And his single purpose was Preparation.

* * * * *

And what both of these children had to say
I never knew, for I ran away.

It Happens in the B. R. Families

WITH THE CUSTOMARY OBEISANCES

'Twas on the shores that round our coast
From Deal