Grimm Tales Made Gay | Page 8

he looked colder,?They only grew bolder,?And tapped on his shoulder
With: "Tag! You're It!"
The lengthy discussion?That sensitive Russian?Compiled on the U. S. A.?Was read by the maid,?As she carelessly played?With her beautiful hair one day.?"The talk you hear in that primitive land,"?He wrote, "nobody can understand."?"Somebody who guffed him,"?She said, "has stuffed him,?And easily bluffed him
To beat the band!"
_The Moral_: The people across the brine?Are exceedingly strong on Auld Lang Syne,?But they're lost in the push when they strike a gang?That is strong on American new line slang!
[Illustration]
How Thomas a Maid from a Dragon Released
Though Philip the Second?Of France was reckoned?No coward, his breath came short?When they told him a dragon?As big as a wagon?Was waiting below in the court!?A dragon so long, and so wide, and so fat,?That he couldn't get in at the door to chat:?The king couldn't leave him?Outside and grieve him,?He had to receive him
Upon the mat,
[Illustration]
The dragon bowed nicely,?And very concisely?He stated the reason he'd called:?He made the disclosure?With frigid composure.?King Philip was simply appalled!?He demanded for eating, a fortnight apart,?The monarch's ten daughters, all dear to his heart.?"And now you'll produce," he?Concluded, "the juicy?And succulent Lucie
By way of start!"
King Philip was pliant,?And far from defiant?--"And servile," no doubt you retort!--?But if _you_ struck a snag on?A bottle-green dragon,?Who filled up two-thirds of your court,?And curled up his tail on your new tin roof,?And made your piazza groan under his hoof,?Would you threaten and thunder,?Or just knuckle under?Completely, I wonder,
If put to proof?
[Illustration]
By way of a truce, he?Brought out little Lucie?And watched her conducted away,?But all of the others?Were out with their brothers!?Thus gaining a little delay,?He promised through heralds sent west and east,?His crown, and his kingdom, and last, not least,?His daughter so sightly?To any one knightly?Who'd come and politely
Wipe out that beast!
For love of the charmer,?Arrayed in his armor,?Each suitor for glory who yearned,?Would gallantly hasten,?The dragon to chasten,?But none of them ever returned!?When the dragon had eaten some sixteen score?He hung up this sign on his cavern door,?Whereat he lay pronely?In majesty lonely:
+------------------------------+?|_There's Standing Room Only |
| For Three Knights More!_|
A slim adolescent,?His beard only crescent,?Rode up at this stage of the game?To where the old sinner?Lay gorged with his dinner,?And breathing out torrents of flame.?He gathered a tip from the flaunting sign,?And took his position the fourth in line,?Until, as foreboded,?By food incommoded,?The dragon exploded
At half-past nine.
[Illustration: _This shows how a servant may laugh at the Fates,
Since everything comes to the fellow who waits._]
The king was delighted?At first when he sighted?The victor, but then in dismay?Regretted his promise.?The stripling was Thomas,?His Majesty's _valet-de-pied_!?He asked him at once: "Will you compromise?"?But Thomas looked straight in his master's eyes,?And answered severely:?"I see your game clearly,?And scorn it sincerely.
Hand out the prize!"
Not long did he linger?Before on the finger?Of Lucie he fitted a ring:?A month or two later?They made him dictator,?In place of the elderly king:?He was lauded by pulpit, and boomed by press,?And no one had ever a chance to guess,?Beholding this hero?Who ruled like a Nero,?His valor was zero,
Or something less.
_The Moral:_ And still from Nice to Calais?Discretion's the better part of--
--_valets!_
_How a Beauty was Waked and Her Suitor was Suited_
Albeit wholly penniless,?Prince Charming wasn't any less?Conceited than a Croesus or a modern millionaire:?Though often in necessity,?No one would ever guess it. He?Was candidly insolvent, and he frankly didn't care!?Of the many debts he made?Not a one was ever paid,?But no one ever pressed him to refund the borrowed gold: While he recklessly kept spending,?People gladly kept on lending,?For the fact they knew a title
Was requital
Twenty-fold!
(He lived in sixteen sixty-three,?This smooth unblushing article,?Since when, as far as I can see,?Men haven't changed a particle!)
In Charming's principality?There was a wild locality,?Composed of sombre forest, and of steep and frowning crags, Of pheasant and of rabbit, too;?And here it was his habit to?Go hunting with his courtiers in the keen pursuit of stags. But the charger that he rode?So mercurially strode?That the prince on one occasion left the others in the lurch, And the falling darkness found him,?With no vassals left around him,?Near a building like an abbey,
Or a shabby
Ruined church.
His Highness said: "I'll ring the bell?And stay till morning in it!" (He?Took Hobson's choice, for no hotel?There was in the vicinity.)
His ringing was so vehement?That any one could see he