Part I

AT a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supperOne whom I will call ELVIRA, and we talked of love and TUPPER,

MR. TUPPER and the Poets, very lightly with them dealing,For I’ve always been distinguished for a strong poetic feeling.

Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto,And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to.

Then she whispered, “To the ball-room we had better, dear, be walking;If we stop down here much longer, really people will be talking.”

There were noblemen in coronets, and military cousins,There were captains by the hundred, there were baronets by dozens.

Yet she heeded not their offers, but dismissed them with a blessing,Then she let down all her back hair, which had taken long in dressing.

Then she had convulsive sobbings in her agitated throttle,Then she wiped her pretty eyes and smelt her pretty smelling-bottle.

So I whispered, “Dear ELVIRA, say,—what can the matter be with you?Does anything you’ve eaten, darling POPSY, disagree with you?”

But spite of all I said, her sobs grew more and more distressing,And she tore her pretty back hair, which had taken long in dressing.

Then she gazed upon the carpet, at the ceiling, then above me,And she whispered, “FERDINANDO, do you really, really love me?”

“Love you?” said I, then I sighed, and then I gazed upon her sweetly—For I think I do this sort of thing particularly neatly.

“Send me to the Arctic regions, or illimitable azure,On a scientific goose-chase, with my COXWELL or my GLAISHER!

“Tell me whither I may hie me—tell me, dear one, that I may know—Is it up the highest Andes? down a horrible volcano?”

But she said, “It isn’t polar bears, or hot volcanic grottoes:Only find out who it is that writes those lovely cracker mottoes!”