| |
| ALAS! what pity ’t is that regularity, | |
| Like Isaac Shove’s, is such a rarity! | |
| But there are swilling wights in London town, | |
| Termed jolly dogs, choice spirits, alias swine, | |
| Who pour, in midnight revel, bumpers down, | 5 |
| Making their throats a thoroughfare for wine. | |
| |
| These spendthrifts, who life’s pleasures thus run on, | |
| Dozing with headaches till the afternoon, | |
| Lose half men’s regular estate of sun, | |
| By borrowing too largely of the moon. | 10 |
| |
| One of this kidney—Toby Tosspot hight— | |
| Was coming from the Bedford late at night; | |
| And being Bacchi plenus, full of wine, | |
| Although he had a tolerable notion | |
| Of aiming at progressive motion, | 15 |
| ’T wasn’t direct,—’t was serpentine. | |
| He worked with sinuosities, along, | |
| Like Monsieur Corkscrew, worming through a cork, | |
| Not straight, like Corkscrew’s proxy, stiff Don Prong,—a fork. | |
| |
| At length, with near four bottles in his pate, | 20 |
| He saw the moon shining on Shove’s brass plate, | |
| When reading, “Please to ring the bell,” | |
| And being civil beyond measure, | |
| “Ring it!” says Toby,—“very well; | |
| I ’ll ring it with a deal of pleasure.” | 25 |
| Toby, the kindest soul in all the town, | |
| Gave it a jerk that almost jerked it down. | |
| |
| He waited full two minutes,—no one came; | |
| He waited full two minutes more;—and then | |
| Says Toby, “If he ’s deaf, I ’m not to blame; | 30 |
| I ’ll pull it for the gentleman again.” | |
| |
| But the first peal woke Isaac in a fright, | |
| Who, quick as lightning, popping up his head, | |
| Sat on his head’s antipodes, in bed, | |
| Pale as a parsnip,—bolt upright. | 35 |
| |
| At length he wisely to himself doth say, calming his fears,— | |
| “Tush! ’t is some fool has rung and run away;” | |
| When peal the second rattled in his ears. | |
| |
| Shove jumped into the middle of the floor; | |
| And, trembling at each breath of air that stirred, | 40 |
| He groped down stairs, and opened the street door, | |
| While Toby was performing peal the third. | |
| |
| Isaac eyed Toby, fearfully askant, | |
| And saw he was a strapper, stout and tall; | |
| Then put this question, “Pray, sir, what d’ye want?” | 45 |
| Says Toby, “I want nothing sir, at all.” | |
| |
| “Want nothing! Sir, you ’ve pulled my bell, I vow, | |
| As if you ’d jerk it off the wire.” | |
| Quoth Toby, gravely making him a bow, | |
| “I pulled it, sir, at your desire.” | 50 |
| |
| “At mine?” “Yes, yours; I hope I ’ve done it well. | |
| High time for bed, sir; I was hastening to it; | |
| But if you write up, ‘Please to ring the bell,’ | |
| Common politeness makes me stop and do it.” | |
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