Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/320

THE BALLOON AND THE GARDEN-SAUCE.

GUILLE v. SWAN. (19 Johnson, 381.)

By Irving Browne.

[A balloonist, accidentally descending into a vegetable garden, called aloud for help, and a crowd rushed in and trampled and destroyed the growing vegetables. The balloon itself did some damage. Held, that he was liable for the entire damage.]

 

GUILLE was a man of high ambition,            
He looked down on the grovelling crowds;
Men seemed to him of low condition,
His head was mainly in the clouds;
Above the sordid earth high flying
On wings of fancy and of thought,
He sought the cloud-land up there lying;
In fact, he was an aeronaut.
Swan was a different sort of fellow,
He rarely looked above the ground;
In products red or green or yellow,
About twelve inches high, he found
An interesting occupation,
With more of profit than of loss;
A very commonplace vocation,—
He cultivated "garden-sauce."
Guille one fine summer day ascended
In Mr. Swan's vicinity,
But long before his course was ended
He fell, like bad divinity;
Like Phaëton's, quite madly banging,
Sheer from the sky his car came down,
And o'er the side his body hanging
Threatened destruction to his crown.
He landed plump in Swan's smart garden,
The car bumped round with awful din,
He shrieked for help; not begging pardon,
Two hundred rescuers rushed in.
The peelers stamped upon the onions
And turnips upside down forlorn;
The mob mixed their unsavory bunions
With Swan's best article of corn;