"And will my whiskers curl so tight?
My cheeks grow smug and muttony?
My face become so red and white?
My coat so blue and buttony?

"Will trousers, such as yours, array
Extremities inferior?

Will chubbiness assert its sway
All over my exterior?

"In this, my unenlightened state,
To work in heavy boots I comes;
Will pumps henceforward decorate

My tiddle toddle tootsicums?

"And shall I get so plump and fresh,
And look no longer seedily?
My skin will henceforth fit my flesh
So tightly and so TWEEDIE-ly?"

The phantom said, "You'll have all this,
You'll know no kind of huffiness,
Your life will be one chubby bliss,

One long unruffled puffiness!"

"Be off!" said irritated BOB.

"Why come you here to bother one? You pharisaical old snob,

You're wuss almost than t' other one!

"I takes my pipe-I takes my pot, And drunk I'm never seen to be:

I'm no teetotaller or sot,

And as I am I mean to be!"

THE STORY OF PRINCE AGIB.

TRIKE the concertina's melancholy string!
Blow the spirit-stirring harp like anything!
Let the piano's martial blast

Rouse the Echoes of the Past,

For of AGIB, PRINCE OF TARTARY, I sing!

Of AGIB, who, amid Tartaric scenes,
Wrote a lot of ballet music in his teens :
His gentle spirit rolls

In the melody of souls

Which is pretty, but I don't know what it means.

Of AGIE, who could readily, at sight,
Strum a march upon the loud Theodolite.
He would diligently play

On the Zoetrope all day,

And blow the gay Pantechnicon all night.

One winter-1 am shaky in my dates

Came two starving Tartar minstrels to his gates;
Oh, ALLAH be obeyed,

How infernally they played!

I remember that they called themselves the "Oüaits."

Oh! that day of sorrow, misery, and rage,
I shall carry to the Catacombs of Age,
Photographically lined

On the tablet of my mind,

When a yesterday has faded from its page!

Alas! PRINCE AGIB went and asked them in;
Gave them beer, and eggs, and sweets, and scent, and tin.
And when (as snobs would say)

They had "put it all away,"

He requested them to tune up and begin.

Though its icy horror chill you to the core,
I will tell you what I never told before,—
The consequences true

Of that awful interview,

For I listened at the keyhole in the door!

They played him a sonata-let me see! "Medulla oblongata"-key of G.

Then they began to sing

That extremely lovely thing,

"Scherzando! ma non troppo, ppp."

He gave them money, more than they could count, Scent from a most ingenious little fount,

More beer, in little kegs,

Many dozen hard-boiled eggs,

And goodies to a fabulous amount.

Now follows the dim horror of my tale,
And I feel I'm growing gradually pale,
For, even at this day,

Though its sting has passed away,
When I venture to remember it, I quail!

The elder of the brothers gave a squeal,
All-overish it made me for to feel;

"Oh, PRINCE," he says, says he,

"If a Prince indeed you be,

I've a mystery I'm going to reveal!