JACK AND ME.

    Shine!—­All right; here y’are, boss! 
      Do it for jest five cents. 
    Get ’em fixed in a minute,—­
      That is, ’f nothing perwents. 
    Set your foot right there, sir. 
      Mornin’s kinder cold,—­
    Goes right through a feller,
      When his coat’s a gittin’ old. 
    Well, yes,—­call it a coat, sir,
      Though ’t aint much more ’n a tear. 
    Git another!—­I can’t, boss;
      Ain’t got the stamps to spare. 
    “Make as much as most on ’em!”
      Yes; but then, yer see,
    They’ve only got one to do for,—­
      There’s two on us, Jack and me. 
    Him?—­Why, that little feller
      With a curus lookin’ back,
    Sittin’ there on the gratin’,
      Warmin’ hisself,—­that’s Jack. 
    Used to go round sellin’ papers,
      The cars there was his lay;
    But he got shoved off of the platform
      Under the wheels one day. 
    Fact,—­the conductor did it,—­
      Gin him a reg’lar throw,—­
    He didn’t care if he killed him;
      Some on ’em is just so. 
    He’s never been all right since, sir,
      Sorter quiet and queer;
    Him and me goes together,
      He’s what they call cashier. 
    Style, that ’ere, for a boot-black,—­
      Made the fellers laugh;
    Jack and me had to take it,
      But we don’t mind no chaff. 
    Trouble!—­not much, you bet, boss! 
      Sometimes, when biz is slack,
    I don’t know how I’d manage
      If ’t wa’n’t for little Jack. 
    You jest once orter hear him: 
      He says we needn’t care
    How rough luck is down here, sir,
      If some day we git up there. 
    All done now,—­how’s that, sir? 
      Shines like a pair of lamps. 
    Mornin’!—­Give it to Jack, sir,
      He looks after the stamps.

    LES ENFANTS PERDUS.

    What has become of the children all? 
      How have the darlings vanished? 
    Fashion’s pied piper, with magical air,
    Has wooed them away, with their flaxen hair
    And laughing eyes, we don’t know where,
      And no one can tell where they’re banished.

    “Where are the children?” cries Madam Haut-ton,
      “Allow me, my sons and daughters,—­
    Fetch them, Annette!” What, madam, those? 
    Children! such exquisite belles and beaux:—­
    True, they’re in somewhat shorter clothes
      Than the most of Dame Fashion’s supporters.

    Good day, Master Eddy!  Young man about town,—­
      A merchant down in the swamp’s son;
    In a neat little book he makes neat little bets: 
    He doesn’t believe in the shop cigarettes,
    But does his own rolling,—­and has for his pets
      Miss Markham and Lydia Thompson.

    He and his comrades can drink champagne
      Like so many juvenile Comuses;
    If you want to insult him, just talk of boys’ play,—­
    Why, even on billiards he’s almost blase,
    Drops in at Delmonico’s three times a day,
      And is known at Jerry Thomas’s.