I THE FUMBLER Gentle Reader, charge your tumbler With anAEmic lemonade! Let us toast our fellow-fumbler, Who was surely born, not made. None of all our friends is "dearer" (Costs us more--to be jocose--); No relation could be nearer, More intensely "close"! Hear him indistinctly mumbling "Oh, I say, do let me pay!" Watch him in his pocket fumbling, In a dilatory way; Plumbing the unmeasured deeps there, With some muttered vague excuse, For the coinage that he keeps there, But will not produce. If he joins you in a hansom, You alone provide the fare; Not for all a monarch's ransom Would he pay his modest share. He may fumble with his collar, He may turn his pockets out, He can never find that dollar Which he spoke about! Cigarettes he sometimes offers, With a sort of old-world grace, But, when you accept them, proffers With surprise, an empty case. Your cigars, instead, he'll snatch, and, With the cunning of the fox, Ask you firmly for a match, and Pocket half your box! If with him a meal you share, too, You'll discover, when you've dined, That your friend has taken care to Leave his frugal purse behind. "We must sup together later," He remarks, with right good-will, "Pass the Heidsieck, please; and, waiter, Bring my friend the bill!" At some crowded railway station He comes running up to you, And exclaims with agitation, "Take my ticket, will you, too?" Though his pow'rs of conversation In the train require no spur, To this trifling obligation He will not refer! When at Bridge you win his money, Do not think it odd or strange If he says, "It's very funny, But I find I've got no change! Do remind me what I owe you, When you see me in the street." Mr. Fumbler, if I know you, We shall never meet! Fumbler, so serenely fumbling In a pocket with thy thumb, Never by good fortune stumbling On the necessary sum, Cease to make polite pretences, Suited to thy niggard ends, Of dividing the expenses With confiding friends! Here, we crown thee, fumbling brother, With the fumbler's well-earned wreath, Who would'st rob thine aged mother Of her artificial teeth! We at length are slowly learning That some friendships cost too dear. "Longest worms must have a turning," And our turn is near! Henceforth, when a cab thou takest, Thou a lonely way must wend; Henceforth, when for food thou achest, Thou must dine without a friend. Thine excuses thou shalt mumble Down some public telephone, And if thou perforce must fumble, Fumble all alone!