John's wife survey'd her lord and shay With most maternal mind; She'd never such a load _before_, And so she push'd _behind_!
So on they trudged: no half-way house Afforded them a sup, But about half-way up the hill John found it was "_all up_."
With agony he used his sleeve, And gasping, cried, "I'm blow'd!" "What then befel the Browns?" I b'lieve _They're still upon the road!_
The first of architects, who, ere he died, Rear'd _columns_ more than all the world beside.
Although we are not of our _pencil vain_, Of _Pennsylvania's_ father among men We draw the tomb on stone; that once again The _Pencil_ may do honour _to the Pen_!
Although there was a regular cut between the next-door people and us, yet Tug and the Honourable Master Mac Turk kept up their acquaintance over the back-garden wall, and in the stables, where they were fighting, making friends, and playing tricks from morning to night, during the holidays. Indeed, it was from young Mac that we first heard of Madame de Flicflac, of whom my Jemmy robbed Lady Kilblazes, as I before have related. When our friend, the Baron, first saw Madame, a very tender greeting passed between them, for they had, as it appeared, been old friends abroad. "Sapristie," said the Baron, in his lingo, "que fais tu ici, Aménaïde?" "Et toi, mon pauvre Chicot," says she, 'est ce qu'on t'a mis à la retraite? Il parait, que tu n'est plus Général chez Franco—" "_Chut!_" says the Baron, putting his finger to his lips.
"What are they saying, my dear?" says my wife to Jemimarann, who had a pretty knowledge of the language by this time.
"I don't know what '_Sapristie_' means, mamma; but the Baron asked Madame what she was doing here? and Madame said, 'And you, Chicot, you are no more a general at Franco.' Have I not translated rightly, Madame?"
"Oui, mon chou, mon ange; yase, my angel, my cabbage, quite right. Figure yourself, I have known my dear Chicot dis twenty years."
"Chicot is my name of baptism," says the Baron; "Baron Chicot de Punter is my name." "And, being a general at Franco," says Jemmy, "means, I suppose, being a French General?"
"Yes, I vas," said he, "General Baron de Punter, n'est il pas, Aménaïde?"
"O, yes!" said Madame Flicflac, and laughed; and I and Jemmy laughed out of politeness: and a pretty laughing matter it was, as you shall hear.