and now, s'elp me scissors, I
find
I was famous _afore I was born_! Sounds a licker, but 'anged if _I_
mind.[1]

DAN the Dosser, a reglar Old Clo' at dead langwidges, classicks, and such,
Says it's _met'em-see-kosis_--a thing as to me, mate, is jest Double Dutch,
Means a soul on the shift, as it were, CHARLIE, tryin' fust this form,
then that,
So that 'ARRY, who once was a donkey, might some o' these days be a rat!

Leastways so the Dosser explains it, of course it is all Tommy rot.
Rummy thing 'ow a cram o' the Classicks do make yer a reglar crackpot.
Dosser hain't no more genuine savvy, he hain't, than a 'aporth o' snuff;
But he's up to the lips-like in Latin, and similar old-fashioned stuff.

Seems some old Latin cove called CAT ULLUS--a gayish old dog _I_ should
say
Knew a party called ARRIUS!--bless 'im!--as lived in that rum Roman day,
And CAT ULLUS he hups and he scribbles a "carmen"--wich then meant a song,
_Not_ a hopera, CHARLIE--about him along of some haitches gone wrong.

Like CAT ULLUS's cheek, if you arsk me! That haitch bizness gives me the
'ump.
There isn't a hignerent mug, or a mealy-mouthed mutton-faced pump
Who 'as learned 'ow to garsp hout a He-haw! in regular la-di-dah style,
But'll look down on "'ARRY the haitchless," and wrinkle his snout in a
smile.

Yah! Haitches ain't heverythink, CHARLIE, no, not by a jugfull they hain't.
And yer "_H_-heah! _H_-hold my _H-h-horse_!" sort o' sniffers would screw
hout big D.'s from a saint.
What's the hodds, arter all? If you're fly to the true hend of Life, wich
is larks,
You may pop in yer haitches permiskus, in spite of the prigs' rude remarks.

The old Roman geeser, CAT ULLUS, who wrote that _de Arrio_ bosh,
Wos a poet, of course, and a classick, two things as to-day will not wash;
Bet yer boots Master ARRIUS 'ad 'im on toast, the old mug, every time,
And that's why he took his revenge like, in verse without reason _or_
rhyme.

Young ARRIUS's huncle, he tells us, talked similar patter. No doubt!
_Havunculus hejus_, I reckon, knew wot he was dashed well about.
I say bully for LIBER, and chance it. 'Tain't whether you say Hill or
'Ill,
It's whether you're able to _climb_ it; and that's where the prigs git
their pill.

There's a party who, in the _St. James's Gazette_, dear old pal, 'tother
day,
Took _my_ name, no