t pertikler in vain, though, and called hisself "'ARRY
B.A."
Wrote smart, he did, CHARLIE, and slick-like, but "'ARRY B.A." isn't Me!
No fear! 'ARRY's not sech an A double S as to want a "Degree."

I know wot's wuth knowin', I reckon, and wot I don't know I can learn,
Without mortar-board 'ats and black bedgowns, or stuffing my brains till
they turn.
To be well _in_ the know is my maxum, but as for "Compulsory Greek,"
Would it give me, I wonder, a hextry "compulsory" two quid a week?

Wy, I knew an old 'atchet-faced party, as lodged in our 'ouse years ago,
_Oozed_ Greek as a plum-tree does gum-blobs; trarnslated for BUFFINS & Co.,
The popular publishers, CHARLIE. I know 'twas a dooce of a grind
For poor MAGSWORTH to earn fifteen quid, and at last he went hout of 'is
mind.

Yus, died of a softening, they told us, through sitting up six months on
end
At a book of Greek plays. Poor old buffer, he hadn't five pounds nor a
friend;
But Degrees? He fair rolled in 'em, CHARLIE! He offered to teach me a lot,
But one lesson in Greek settled me; it's the crackjorest speshus of rot!

ARRY STUFFY KNEES sounds pooty ropy; he's one of their classickal pets;
Old THOOSY DIDES, too, he's another. In high Huniwarsity sets
They chuck 'em in chunks at each other, like mossels of Music 'All gag,
And at forty they've clean slap forgot 'em! _I_ want to know where comes
the swag?

Hedgercation is all very proper, purviding it gives yer the pull
Hover parties as don't know the ropes, in a market that's mostly too full;
But this Classick kerriculum's kibosh, Greek plays, Latin verse and all
that.
All CAT ULLUS's haitches won't 'elp yer, if Nature 'as built yer a flat!

Though ARRIUS's haspirates rucked, and made Mister CAT ULLUS chi-ike,
He was probably jest such a rattler as poets and prigs _never_ like,
When a chap knows 'is book, piles the ochre, perhaps becomes pal to a
Prince,
Lor! it's wonderful 'ow a dropped haitch or two _do_ make the
mealy-mouths wince.

Wot's a haitch but a garsp, arter all? Yer swell haspirate's only a
breath,
Yet, like eating green peas with a knife, it scumfoodles the sniffers to
death,
As a fack the knife's 'andiest, fur, and there's many a haitch-screwing
toff
Who would find patter easier biz if the motter was "haspirates is hoff!"

_The_ 'Igher Hedgercation means "savv