124. The Razor Seller.

A fellow in a market town,

Most musical, cried "Razors!" up and down,
And offered twelve for eighteen pence;
Which certainly seemed wondrous cheap,
And for the money quite a heap,

As every man would buy, with cash and sense.

A country bumpkin' the great offer heard,-
Poor Hodge, who suffered by a broad black beard,
That seemed a shoe brush stuck beneath his nose:
With cheerfulness the eighteen pence he paid,
And proudly to himself in whispers said,
"This rascal stole the razors, I suppose.

"No matter if the fellow be a knave,
Provided that the razors shave;

It certainly will be a most enormous prize."
So home the clown2 with his good fortune went,
Smiling, in heart and soul content,

And quickly soaped himself to ears and eyes.

Being well lathered from a dish or tub,
Hodge now began, with grinning pain, to grub,
Just like a hedger cutting furze.

"Twas a vile razor! Then the rest he tried:

All were impostors. "Ah!" Hodge sighed, "I wish my eighteen pence were in my purse."

1 bumpkin, rustic.

2 clown, rustic, bumpkin.

Hodge sought the fellow, found him, and begun :
"P'rhaps, Master Razor-rogue, to you 'tis fun

That people flay themselves out of their lives.
You rascal! for an hour have I been grubbing,
Giving my crying whiskers here a scrubbing
With razors just like oyster knives.
Sirrah! I tell you, you're a knave,
To cry up razors that can't shave!"

"Friend," quoth the razor man, "I'm not a knave.

As for the razors you have bought,

Upon my word, I never thought

That they would shave."

"Not think they'd shave!" quoth Hodge, with wonder

ing eyes,

And voice not much unlike an Indian yell:

"What were they made for, then, you scamp?" he cries "Made!" quoth the fellow with a smile, "To SELL!"

This piece is an illustration of "sound the echo of the sense," and, if well rendered, will produce an amusing illustration of rampant piano playing. The successive changes sufficiently indicate the elocution: first soft, then staccato, etc.

First a soft and gentle tinkle,
Gentle as the raindrop's sprinkle,

Then a stop,
Fingers drop.

Now begins a merry trill,

Like a cricket in a mill;
Now a short, uneasy motion,
Like a ripple on the ocean.
See the fingers dance about,

Hear the notes come tripping out;
How they mingle in the tingle
Of the everlasting jingle,
Like to hailstones on a shingle,
Or the ding-dong, dangle-dingle
Of a sheep bell! Double, single,
Now they come in wilder gushes,
Up and down the player rushes,
Quick as squirrels, sweet as thrushes.
Now the keys begin to clatter
Like the music of a platter

When the maid is stirring batter.
O'er the music comes a change,

Every tone is wild and strange:
Listen to the lofty tumbling,

Hear the mumbling, fumbling, jumbling,

Like the rumbling and the grumbling

Of the thunder from its slumbering

Just awaking. Now it's taking

To the quaking, like a fever-and-ague shaking.
Heads are aching, something's breaking.
Goodness gracious! Ain't it wondrous,

Rolling round above and under us,
Like old Vulcan's1 stroke so thunderous?

1 atean, the Roman god of fire, and hence of the smithy.

Now 'tis louder, but the powder
Will be all exploded soon;
For the only way to do,

When the music's nearly through,

Is to muster all your muscle for a bang,
Striking twenty notes together with a clang:
Hit the treble with a twang,

Give the bass an awful whang,
And close the whole performance
With a slam-bang - whang!

126. The Countryman and the Lawyer.

A lawyer in the Common Pleas,1
Who was esteemed a mighty wit,
Upon the strength of a chance hit
Amid a thousand flippancies,
And his occasional bad jokes

In bullying, bantering, browbeating,
Ridiculing, and maltreating
Women or other timid folks, —

Who, by his uncouth look and gait,
Appeared expressly meant by Fate
To be quizzed and played upon.

So, having tipped the wink to those

In the back rows,

1 Common Pleas (i.e., Common | ordinary suits between parties are Pleadings) is the court in which tried.

Who kept their laughter bottled down
Until our wag should draw the cork,
He smiled jocosely on the clown,

And went to work.

"Well, Farmer Numskull, how go calves at York?'

แ

"Why not, sir, as they do wi' you,

But on four legs instead of two."

"Officer!" cried the legal elf,1 Piqued at the laugh against himself,

"Do, pray, keep silence down below there. Now look at me, clown, and attend:

Have I not seen you somewhere, friend?"

2

"Ye-es very like: I often go there."

"Our rustic's waggish quite laconic,"
The lawyer cried, with grin sardonic:
"I wish I'd known this prodigy,
This genius of the clods, when I,

On circuit, was at York residing.

Now, Farmer, do for once speak true:

Mind, you're on oath; so tell me, you
Who doubtless think yourself so clever,
Are there as many fools as ever

In the West Riding? "5

"Why, no, sir, no: we've got our share, But not so many as when you were there."

1 elf, here meaning trickster.

2 like = likely.

3 sardonic, mocking and bitter.
4 circuit, the appointed route or

tour from court to court made by a judge or lawyer.

5 West Riding, one of the three judicial districts of Yorkshirę,