THE ARTFUL DODGE.

Gently Tiger crouches along,

Humming a kind of animal song,

A sweet subdued familiar lay

As ever was warbled by beast of prey,

And all so softly, tunefully done,

That it made no more sound

Than his shade on the ground,

So the Bengalese heard it, never a one!

Gently Tiger steals along,

"Mild as moon-beam," meek as lamb;

What so suddenly changes his song

From a tune to a growl?

Nothing on earth but the smell of the ham!

He quickens his pace,

The illigant baste,

And he's running a race

With himself for a taste,

And he's taken to roaring and given up humming,

Just to let the two Bengalese know he is coming!"

What terrors seize the Bengalese !

As the roar of the tiger reaches their ears,

"Short-and-stout," with his hair all grey,

Has a rattling note, in his jolly old throat:
If choking his laugh with a truss of hay,

He couldn't more surely have stifled the gay.
While "Tall-and-thin," with his hair all carroty,
Looks thrice as red, with fright, as his head,
And his face bounds plump, at a single jump,
Into horror, and out of hilarity!

All they can hear, in their terrible fear,

Behind and before, is the Tiger's roar;

Again and again, over the plain,

Clearer and clearer-nearer and nearer,

Into the tub, now, its way it has found,
Where its echoes keep rolling round and round,
Till out of the bung-hole they bursting come,

Like a regiment of thunders escaped from a drum!

If an earthquake had shattered a thousand kegs,
The terrified Bengalese couldn't-i'fegs-

Have leapt more rapidly on to their legs.

He's at 'em, he's on 'em, the jungle guest:
When a man's life by peril is prest,

His wits will sometimes be at their best;

So the presence of Tiger I find

Inspires our heroes with presence of mind!

There's no time to be lost,

Down the glasses are tost;

The Bengalese have abandon'd their grub,

And they're dodging their gentleman round the Tub!

Active and earnest, they nowhere lodge,

And he can't get at them because of their dodge;

"Short-and-stout" and "Tall-and-thin "

Never before such a scrape were in;