NOT A SOU HAD HE GOT

NOT a sou had he got—not a guinea or note,

And he looked confoundedly flurried

As he bolted away without paying his shot,

And the Landlady after him hurried.

We saw him again at dead of night,

When home from the club returning;

We twigged the Doctor beneath the light

Of the gas-lamp brilliantly burning.

All bare and exposed to the midnight dews,

Reclined in the gutter we found him;

And he look’d like a gentleman taking a snooze,

With his Marshal cloak around him.

“The Doctor’s as drunk as the d——,” we said,

And we managed a shutter to borrow;

We raised him, and sighed at the thought that his head

Would “consumedly ache” on the morrow.

We bore him home, and we put him to bed,

And we told his wife and his daughter

To give him, next morning, a couple of red

Herrings, with soda-water.

Loudly they talked of his money that’s gone

And his lady began to upbraid him;

But little he reck’d, so they let him snore on

’Neath the counterpane just as we laid him.

We tucked him in, and had hardly done

When, beneath the window calling,

We heard the rough voice of a son of a gun

Of a watchman “One o’clock!” bawling.

Slowly and sadly we all walk’d down

From his room in the uppermost story;

A rushlight was placed on the cold hearth-stone,

And we left him alone in his glory!

_R. Harris Barham._