And clapt it i’ my poke, having given for same
By way o’ chop, swop, barter or exchange —
‘Chop’ was my snickering dandiprat’s own term —
One shilling and fourpence, current coin o’ the realm. 
O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four
Pence, one and fourpence—­you are with me, sir? —
What hour it skills not:  ten or eleven o’ the clock,
One day (and what a roaring day it was
Go shop or sight-see—­bar a spit o’ rain!)
In February, eighteen sixty nine,
Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei
Hm—­hm—­how runs the jargon? being on throne.

Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put,
The basis or substratum—­what you will —
Of the impending eighty thousand lines. 
“Not much in ’em either,” quoth perhaps simple Hodge. 
But there’s a superstructure.  Wait a bit.

Mark first the rationale of the thing: 
Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed. 
That shilling—­and for matter o’ that, the pence —
I had o’ course upo’ me—­wi’ me say —
(Mecum’s the Latin, make a note o’ that)
When I popp’d pen i’ stand, scratch’d ear, wiped snout,
(Let everybody wipe his own himself)
Sniff’d—­tch!—­at snuffbox; tumbled up, he-heed,
Haw-haw’d (not hee-haw’d, that’s another guess thing:)
Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door,
I shoved the timber ope wi’ my omoplat;
And in vestibulo, i’ the lobby to-wit,
(Iacobi Facciolati’s rendering, sir,)
Donn’d galligaskins, antigropeloes,
And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,
One on and one a-dangle i’ my hand,
And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o’ rain,
I flopp’d forth, ’sbuddikins! on my own ten toes,
(I do assure you there be ten of them),
And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale
To find myself o’ the sudden i’ front o’ the boy. 
Put case I hadn’t ’em on me, could I ha’ bought
This sort-o’-kind-o’-what-you-might-call toy,
This pebble-thing, o’ the boy-thing?  Q. E. D.
That’s proven without aid from mumping Pope,
Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal. 
(Isn’t it, old Fatchaps?  You’re in Euclid now.)
So, having the shilling—­having i’ fact a lot —
And pence and halfpence, ever so many o’ them,
I purchased, as I think I said before,
The pebble (lapis, lapidis, -di, -dem, -de —
What nouns ‘crease short i’ the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?)
O’ the boy, a bare-legg’d beggarly son of a gun,
For one-and-fourpence.  Here we are again.

Now Law steps in, bigwigg’d, voluminous-jaw’d;
Investigates and re-investigates. 
Was the transaction illegal?  Law shakes head. 
Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his. 
But now (by virtue of the said exchange
And barter) vice versa all the coin,
Per juris operationem, vests
I’ the boy and his assigns till ding o’ doom;
(In saecula saeculo-o-o-orum;
I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.)
To have and hold the same to him and them . . .