H.M.S. "PINAFORE"
Paw of cat the chestnut snatches;
Worn-out garments show new patches;
Men are grown-up "catchy-catches."
Yes (said Little Buttercup) I know
That is so.
Then she sang, under her breath, so that nobody at all should hear her.
Though to catch my drift he's striving,
I'll dissemble—I'll dissemble—
When he sees at what I'm driving
Let him tremble—let him tremble!
and, muttering to herself in a fashion which might be described, musically, as a triumph of pianissimo, she disappeared mysteriously into the forward part of the ship.
Captain Corcoran—though very uneasy at her portentous utterances—was rather disposed to pat himself on the back for having tackled her on her own ground in the matter of stringing rhymes, and (as he thought) beaten her at it. But in this he was wrong, for if you compare her lines with his, you will see that whereas her lines dealt exclusively with people and things who were not so important as they thought themselves to be, his lines were merely chopped-up proverbs that had nothing to do with each other or with anything else. Still it
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