I fancy I have perhaps more talent for electioneering than for poetry, and I was really getting extended over this quatrain business. The egg began to be unmanageable, and the duchess suggested something with a French literary ring about it. I hunted back in my mind for the most familiar French classic that I could take liberties with, and after a little exercise of memory I turned out the following:⁠—

“Hast thou the pen that once the gardener had?

I have it not; and know, these pears are bad.

Oh, larger than the horses of the Prince

Are those the general drives in Kaikobad.”