THE MOTRIOT

‘ It was chickens, chickens, all the way,

With children crossing the road like mad;

Police disguised in the hedgerows lay,

Stop-watches and large white flags they had,

At nine o'clock o’ this very day.

‘ I broke the record to Tunbridge Wells,

And I shouted aloud, to all concerned,

“Give room, good folk, do you hear my bells?”

But my motor skidded and overturned;

Then exploded — and afterwards, what smells!

‘ Alack! it was I rode over the son

Of a butcher; rolled him all of a heap!

Nought man could do did I leave undone;

And I thought that butcher's boys were cheap,—

But this, poor man,‘ twas his only one.

‘ There's nobody in my motor now,—

Just a tangled car in the ditch upset;

For the fun of the fair is, all allow,

At the County Court, or, better yet,

By the very foot of the dock, I trow.

‘ Thus I entered, and thus I go;

In Court the magistrate sternly said,

“Five guineas fine, and the costs you owe!”

I might not question, so promptly paid.

Henceforth I walk; I am safer so.’