The Magic Pudding

After that they had boiled jam roll and apple dumpling, as the fancy took them, for if you wanted a change of food from the Puddin', all you had to do was to whistle twice and turn the basin round.

Don't you know that nothin' gives a man greater remorse than havin' his face punched, his toes trod on, and eggs rubbed in his hair?

Well, if this ain't enough to dumbfound a codfish.

Take my advice, don't carry bags,

For bags are just as bad as swags;

They're never made to measure.

To see the world, your simple trick

Is but to take a walking-stick—

Assume an air of pleasure,

And tell the people near and far

You stroll about because you are

A Gentleman of Leisure.

[H]e was a very well-bred young fellow, polite in his manners, graceful in his attitudes, and able to converse on a great variety of subjects, having read all the best Australian poets.

One was a Possum, with one of those sharp, snooting, snouting sort of faces, and the other was a bulbous, boozy-looking Wombat in an old long-tailed coat, and a hat that marked him down as a man you couldn't trust in the fowl-yard.

Whiskers alone are bad enough

Attached to faces coarse and rough

But how much greater their offence is

When stuck on Uncles' countenances

O, who would be a puddin',

A puddin' in a pot,

A puddin' which is stood on

A fire which is hot?

O sad indeed the lot

Of puddin's in a pot.

"You ain't got any tobacco," he said scornfully to Bunyip Bluegum. "I can see that at a glance. You're one of the non-smoking sort, all fur and feathers."

Let your conduct be noble, and never sing the National Anthem to people wearing bell-toppers.

"Whiskers in the Puddin' is worse than puddin' in the whiskers," shouted the Puddin', standing up in his basin.

But at this season puddin' thieves generally go south-east, owing to the price of onions.

Bill was a small man with a large hat, a beard half as large as his hat, and feet half as large as his beard. Sam Sawnoff's feet were sitting down and his body was standing up, because his feet were so short and his body so long that he had to do both together.

"Thank you," said the Mayor, peevishly; " but, on the whole, I prefer to be restored with peeled bananas."

Bill, of course, treated this conduct with silent contempt. It was his rule through life, he said, never to fight people with beaks.

Oh, rolling round the ocean,

From a far and foreign land,

May suit the common notion

That a sailor's life is grand.But as for me, I'd sooner be

A roaring here at home

About the rolling, roaring life

Of them that sails the foam.For the homeward-bounder's chorus,

Which he roars across the foam,

Is all about chucking a sailor's life,

And settling down at home.Home, home, home,

That's the song of them that roam,

The song of the roaring, rolling sea

Is all about rolling home.

"Very well sung, Albert," said Bill encouragingly, "though you're a trifle husky in your undertones, which is no doubt due to the gravy in your innards."

O Caribbee! O Barbaree!

O shores of South Amerikee!

O, never go there: if the truth be told,

You'll get more kicks than Spanish gold.