He put his pumpsious shoon on foot,
    He bent his knees to slithe and sprawl,
  Till, fagged and flausted by disdoot,
      He brooded by the wall.

  And, as in broody ease he lay,
    The Jazzerwock, with shoulders bare,
  Came swhiffling through the juggly fray
      And grapped him by the hair.

  One, two!  One, two!  And through and through
    The prancing maze they reeled and pressed,
  Till both his feet ignored the beat
      And woggled with the best.

  “And hast thou learnt at last to jazz? 
    Come take my arm, my clomplish boy;”
  O hectic day!  Cheero!  Cheeray! 
      He chwinckled in his joy.

  ’Twas grillig, and the Jazzlewags
    Did glomp and scrimble o’er the board;
  All gladsome were their dazzlerags,
      And the loud Nigs uproared.

* * * * *

A PAINFUL SUBJECT.

I do not love dentists.  In this antipathy I am not unique, I fancy.  One never sees photographs of family dentists standing on mantelpieces heavily framed in silver; and, though The Forceps presents a coloured supplement depicting a prominent ivory-hunter with every Christmas number, there is, I am told, no violent demand for it outside the Profession.

This is not to be wondered at.  A man who spends his life climbing into people’s mouths and playing “The Anvil Chorus” on their molars with a monkey-wrench, who says, “Now this won’t hurt you in the least,” and then deals one a smart rap on a nerve with a pickaxe—­such a man cannot expect to be popular.  He must console himself with his fees.

I do not love dentists, I repeat, but I am also not infatuated with toothache.  It is not that I am a coward.  Far from it.  Arterial sclerosis, glycosuria, follicular tonsillitis and, above all, sleeping sickness I can bear with fortitude—­that is, I feel sure I could—­but toothache, no!  I am not ashamed of it.  Every brave man has at least one weakness.  Lord ROBERTS’S was cats.  Achilles’ was tendons.  Mine is toothache (Biographers, please note).  When my jaw annoys me I try to propitiate it with libations of whisky, brandy, iodine, horse-blister and patent panaceas I buy from sombreroed magicians in the Strand.  If these fail I totter round to the dentist, ring the bell and run away.  If the maid catches me before I can escape and turns me into the waiting-room I examine the stuffed birds and photographs of Brighton Pier until she has departed, then slither quietly down the banisters, open the street door and gallop.  If I am pushed directly into the abattoir I shake the dentist warmly by the hand, ask after his wife and children, his grandfather and great-aunt, and tell him I have only dropped in to tune the piano.  If that is no good I try to make an appointment for an afternoon this year, next year, some time, never.  If that too is useless and he insists on putting me through it there and then, I take every anodyne he’s got—­cocaine, morphia, chloroform, ether, gas, also a couple of anaesthetists to hold my hand when I go off and kiss me when I come round again.