( MUD FLAT, 1860 )

So you're back from your travels, old fellow,

And you left but a twelvemonth ago;

You've hobnobbed with Louis Napoleon,

Eugenie, and kissed the Pope's toe.

By Jove, it is perfectly stunning,

Astounding,— and all that, you know;

Yes, things are about as you left them

In Mud Flat a twelvemonth ago.

The boys!— they're all right,— Oh! Dick Ashley,

He's buried somewhere in the snow;

He was lost on the Summit last winter,

And Bob has a hard row to hoe.

You know that he's got the consumption?

You did n't! Well, come, that's a go;

I certainly wrote you at Baden,—

Dear me! that was six months ago.

I got all your outlandish letters,

All stamped by some foreign P. O.

I handed myself to Miss Mary

That sketch of a famous chateau.

Tom Saunders is living at‘ Frisco,—

They say that he cuts quite a show.

You did n't meet Euchre-deck Billy

Anywhere on your road to Cairo?

So you thought of the rusty old cabin,

The pines, and the valley below,

And heard the North Fork of the Yuba

As you stood on the banks of the Po?

‘ Twas just like your romance, old fellow;

But now there is standing a row

Of stores on the site of the cabin

That you lived in a twelvemonth ago.

But it's jolly to see you, old fellow,—

To think it's a twelvemonth ago!

And you have seen Louis Napoleon,

And look like a Johnny Crapaud.

Come in. You will surely see Mary,—

You know we are married. What, no?

Oh, ay! I forgot there was something

Between you a twelvemonth ago.