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- and excuse my speaking my mind so bluntly.-
- Come, my dearest friend, banish this stuff from your head,
- and get used to the thought of the casting-ladle.
- What would you gain if I lodged you and boarded you?
- Consider; I know you're a sensible man.
- Well, you'd keep your memory; that's so far true;-
- but the retrospect o'er recollection's domain
- would be, both for heart and for intellect,
- what the Swedes call "Mighty poor sport" indeed.
- You have nothing either to howl or to smile about,
- no cause for rejoicing nor yet for despair,
- nothing to make you feel hot or cold;
- only a sort of a something to fret over.
PEER
- It is written: It's never so easy to know
- where the shoe is tight that one isn't wearing.
THE LEAN ONE
- Very true; I have-praise be to so-and-so!-
- no occasion for more than a single odd shoe.
- But it's lucky we happened to speak of shoes;
- it reminds me that I must be hurrying on;-
- I'm after a roast that I hope will prove fat;
- so I really mustn't stand gossiping here.-
PEER
- And may one inquire, then, what sort of sin-diet
- the man has been fattened on?
THE LEAN O
