| |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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 monstrous prize.” | 15 |
| So home the clown, 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, | 20 |
| Just like a hedger cutting furze; | |
| ’T was a vile razor!—then the rest he tried,— | |
| All were impostors. “Ah!” Hodge sighed, | |
| “I wish my eighteen pence within my purse.” | |
| |
| In vain to chase his beard, and bring the graces, | 25 |
| He cut, and dug, and winced, and stamped, and swore; | |
| Brought blood, and danced, blasphemed, and made wry faces, | |
| And cursed each razor’s body o’er and o’er: | |
| |
| His muzzle formed of opposition stuff, | |
| Firm as a Foxite, would not lose its ruff; | 30 |
| So kept it,—laughing at the steel and suds. | |
| Hodge, in a passion, stretched his angry jaws, | |
| Vowing the direst vengeance with clenched claws, | |
| On the vile cheat that sold the goods. | |
| “Razors! a mean, confounded dog, | 35 |
| Not fit to scrape a hog!” | |
| |
| Hodge sought the fellow,—found him,—and begun: | |
| “P’rhaps, Master Razor-rogue, to you ’t is fun, | |
| That people flay themselves out of their lives. | |
| You rascal; for an hour have I been grubbing, | 40 |
| 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; | 45 |
| As for the razors you have bought, | |
| Upon my soul, I never thought! | |
| That they would shave.” | |
| “Not think they ’d shave!” quoth Hodge, with wondering eyes, | |
| And voice not much unlike an Indian yell; | 50 |
| “What were they made for, then, you dog?” he cries. | |
| “Made,” quoth the fellow with a smile,—“to sell.” | |
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