quill.

If you find as my fist runs to size, set it down to that quill, dear
old pal;
Correspondents is on to me lately, complains as I write like a gal.
Sixteen words to the page, and slopscrawly, all dashes and blobs.
Well, it's true;
But a quill and big sprawl is the fashion, so wot is a feller to do?

Didn't spot you at 'Enley, old oyster--I did 'ope you'd shove in
your oar.
We 'ad a rare barney, I tell you, although a bit spiled by the pour.
'Ad a invite to 'OPKINS's 'Ouse-boat, prime pitch, and swell party,
yer know,
Pooty girls, first-class lotion, and music. I tell yer we did let
things go.

Who sez 'Enley ain't up to old form, that Society gives it the slip?
Wish you could 'ave seen us--and heard us--old boy, when aboard of
our ship.
Peonies and poppies ain't in it for colour with our little lot,
And with larfter and banjos permiskus we managed to mix it up 'ot.

My blazer was claret and mustard, my "stror" was a rainbow gone
wrong;
I ain't one who's ashamed of his colours, but likes 'em mixed
middlingish strong.
'EMMY 'OPKINS, the fluffy-'aired daughter, a dab at a punt or canoe,
Said I looked like a garden of dahlias, and showed up her neat navy
blue.

Fair mashed on yours truly, Miss EMMY; but that's only jest by the
way,
'ARRY ain't one to brag of _bong four tunes_; but wot I wos wanting
to say
Is about this here "spiling the River" which snarlers set down to our
sort.
Bosh! CHARLIE, extreme Tommy rot! It's these sniffers as want to
spile sport.

Want things all to theirselves, these old jossers, and all on the
strictest Q.T.
Their idea of the Thames being "spiled" by the smallest suggestion of
spree,
Wy it's right down rediklus, old pal, gives a feller the ditherums,
it do.
I mean going for them a rare bat, and I'm game to wire in till all's
blue.

Who are they, these stuckuppy snipsters, as jaw about quiet and peace,
Who would silence the gay "constant-screamer" and line the Thames
banks with perlice;
Who sneer about "'ARRY at 'Enley," and sniff about "cads on the course,"
As though it meant "Satan in Eden"? I'll 'owl at sich oafs till I'm
'oarse!

Scrap o'sandwich-greased paper'll shock 'em, a ginger-beer bottle or
"Bass,"
Wot 'appens to drop 'mong the lilies, or gets chucked aside on the
grass,