Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads | Page 3

marry--
As the
artless Sleary put it:--"Just the thing for me and Carrie."
Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin--impulse of a baser mind? No! He
started epileptic fits of an appalling kind.
[Of his modus operandi only this much I could gather:--
"Pears's
shaving sticks will give you little taste and lots of lather."]
Frequently in public places his affliction used to smite
Sleary with
distressing vigour--always in the Boffkins' sight.
Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his ring,
Told him
his "unhappy weakness" stopped all thought of marrying.

Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy,--
Epileptic fits
don't matter in Political employ,--
Wired three short words to
Carrie--took his ticket, packed his kit-- Bade farewell to Minnie
Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit.
Four weeks later, Carrie Sleary read--and laughed until she wept-- Mrs.
Boffkin's warning letter on the "wretched epilept." . . .
Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffkin sits Waiting for
the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits.
PUBLIC WASTE
Walpole talks of "a man and his price."
List to a ditty queer--
The sale of a Deputy-Acting-ViceResident
-Engineer,
Bought like a bullock, hoof and hide,
By the Little Tin
Gods on the Mountain Side.
By the Laws of the Family Circle 'tis written in letters of brass That
only a Colonel from Chatham can manage the Railways of State,
Because of the gold on his breeks, and the subjects wherein he must
pass; Because in all matters that deal not with Railways his knowledge
is great.
Now Exeter Battleby Tring had laboured from boyhood to eld
On the
Lines of the East and the West, and eke of the North and South; Many
Lines had he built and surveyed--important the posts which he held;
And the Lords of the Iron Horse were dumb when he opened his
mouth.
Black as the raven his garb, and his heresies jettier still-- Hinting that
Railways required lifetimes of study and knowledge-- Never clanked
sword by his side--Vauban he knew not nor drill-- Nor was his name on
the list of the men who had passed through the "College."
Wherefore the Little Tin Gods harried their little tin souls, Seeing he

came not from Chatham, jingled no spurs at his heels, Knowing that,
nevertheless, was he first on the Government rolls For the billet of
"Railway Instructor to Little Tin Gods on Wheels."
Letters not seldom they wrote him, "having the honour to state," It
would be better for all men if he were laid on the shelf. Much would
accrue to his bank-book, an he consented to wait Until the Little Tin
Gods built him a berth for himself,
"Special, well paid, and exempt from the Law of the Fifty and Five,
Even to Ninety and Nine"--these were the terms of the pact: Thus did
the Little Tin Gods (long may Their Highnesses thrive!) Silence his
mouth with rupees, keeping their Circle intact;
Appointing a Colonel from Chatham who managed the Bhamo State
Line (The which was one mile and one furlong--a guaranteed
twenty-inch gauge), So Exeter Battleby Tring consented his claims to
resign,
And died, on four thousand a month, in the ninetieth year of
his age!
DELILAH
We have another viceroy now,--those days are dead and done
Of
Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne.
Delilah Aberyswith was a lady--not too young--
With a perfect taste
in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue,
With a thirst for information,
and a greater thirst for praise, And a little house in Simla in the
Prehistoric Days.
By reason of her marriage to a gentleman in power,
Delilah was
acquainted with the gossip of the hour;
And many little secrets, of the
half-official kind,
Were whispered to Delilah, and she bore them all
in mind.
She patronized extensively a man, Ulysses Gunne,
Whose mode of
earning money was a low and shameful one.
He wrote for certain

papers, which, as everybody knows,
Is worse than serving in a shop
or scaring off the crows.
He praised her "queenly beauty" first; and, later on, he hinted At the
"vastness of her intellect" with compliment unstinted. He went with her
a-riding, and his love for her was such
That he lent her all his horses
and--she galled them very much.
One day, THEY brewed a secret of a fine financial sort;
It related to
Appointments, to a Man and a Report.
'Twas almost worth the
keeping,--only seven people knew it-- And Gunne rose up to seek the
truth and patiently pursue it.
It was a Viceroy's Secret, but--perhaps the wine was red--
Perhaps an
Aged Councillor had lost his aged head--
Perhaps Delilah's eyes were
bright--Delilah's whispers sweet-- The Aged Member told her what
'twere treason to repeat.
Ulysses went a-riding, and they talked of love and flowers; Ulysses
went a-calling, and he called for several hours;
Ulysses went
a-waltzing, and Delilah helped him dance--
Ulysses let the waltzes go,
and waited for his chance.
The