With barely stifled sigh
That porter drooped his head,
With teardrops in his eye,
"A many, sir," he said.

He stayed to hear no more,
But pushed that porter by,
And shortly stood before
Sir Hugh de Peckham Rye.

Sir Hugh he darkly frowned,
"What would you, sir, with me?"
The troubadour he downed
Upon his bended knee.

"I've come, De Peckham Rye,
To do a Christian task;
You ask me what would I?
It is not much I ask.

"Release these maidens, sir,
Whom you dominion o'er--
Particularly her
Upon the second floor.

"And if you don't, my lord"--
He here stood bolt upright,
And tapped a tailor's sword--
"Come out, you cad, and fight!"

Sir Hugh he called--and ran
The warden from the gate:
"Go, show this gentleman
The maid in forty-eight."

By many a cell they past,
And stopped at length before
A portal, bolted fast:
The man unlocked the door.

He called inside the gate
With coarse and brutal shout,
"Come, step it, Forty-eight!"
And Forty-eight stepped out.

"They gets it pretty hot,
The maidens what we cotch--
Two years this lady's got
For collaring a wotch."

"Oh, ah!--indeed--I see,"
The troubadour exclaimed--
"If I may make so free,
How is this castle named?"

The warden's eyelids fill,
And sighing, he replied,
"Of gloomy Pentonville
This is the female side!"

The minstrel did not wait
The warden stout to thank,
But recollected straight
He'd business at the Bank.

THE FORCE OF ARGUMENT.

Lord B. was a nobleman bold,
Who came of illustrious stocks,
He was thirty or forty years old,
And several feet in his socks.

To Turniptopville-by-the-Sea
This elegant nobleman went,
For that was a borough that he
Was anxious to rep-per-re-sent.

At local assemblies he danced
Until he felt thoroughly ill--
He waltzed, and he galloped, and lanced,
And threaded the mazy quadrille.

The maidens of Turniptopville
Were simple--ingenuous--pure--
And they all worked away with a will
The nobleman's heart to secure.

Two maidens all others beyond
Imagined their chances looked well--
The one was the lively Ann Pond,
The other sad Mary Morell.

Ann Pond had determined to try
And carry the Earl with a rush.
Her principal feature was eye,
Her greatest accomplis