st know,
The finest flowers of beauty grow.
He'd the very widest kind of jaws,
And his nails were like an eagle's claws,
And--though it may seem a wondrous tale--
(Truth is mighty and will prevail!)
He'd a _queue_ as long as the deepest cause
Under the Emperor's chancery laws!

Yet how he managed to win Min-Ne
The men declared they couldn't see;
But all the ladies, over their tea,
In this one point were known to agree:
_Four gifts_ were sent to aid his plea:
A smoking-pipe with a golden clog,
A box of tea and a poodle dog,
And a painted heart that was all aflame,
And bore, in blood, the lover's name,
Ah! how could presents pretty as these
A delicate lady fail to please?
She smoked the pipe with the golden clog,
And drank the tea, and ate the dog,
And kept the heart,--and that's the way
The match was made, the gossips say.

I can't describe the wedding-day,
Which fell in the lovely month of May;
Nor stop to tell of the Honey-moon,
And how it vanish'd all too soon;
Alas! that I the truth must speak,
And say that in the fourteenth week,
Soon as the wedding guests were gone,
And their wedding suits began to doff,
Min-Ne was weeping and "taking-on,"
For _he_ had been trying to "take her off."
Six wives before he had sent to heaven,
And being partial to number "seven,"
He wish'd to add his latest pet,
Just, perhaps, to make up the set!
Mayhap the rascal found a cause
Of discontent in a certain clause
In the Emperor's very liberal laws,
Which gives, when a Golden Belt is wed,
Six hundred pounds to furnish the bed;
And if in turn he marry a score,
With every wife six hundred more.

First, he tried to murder Min-Ne
With a special cup of poison'd tea,
But the lady smelling a mortal foe,
Cried, "Ho-Ho!
I'm very fond of mild Souchong,
But you, my love, you make it too strong."

At last Ho-Ho, the treacherous man,
Contrived the most infernal plan
Invented since the world began;
He went and got him a savage dog,
Who'd eat a woman as soon as a frog;
Kept him a day withou