Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/78

60 "When she whispered, something sadly: 'I—we feel your going badly!'"

"And you let the chance escape you?" rapped the rattling tonga-bar.

"What a chance and what an idiot!" clicked the vicious tonga-bar.

Heart of man—O heart of putty! Had I gone by Kakahutti,

On the old Hill-road and rutty, I had 'scaped that fatal car.

But his fortune each must bide by, so I watched the milestones slide by

To—"You call on Her to-morrow!" fugue with cymbals by the bar—

"You must call on Her to-morrow!"—post-horn gallop by the bar.

Yet a further stage my goal on—we were whirling down to Solon,

With a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost, ganz und gar—

"She was very sweet," I hinted. "If a kiss had been imprinted———?"

"'Would ha' saved a world of trouble!" clashed the busy tonga-bar.

"'Been accepted or rejected!" banged and clanged the tonga-bar.

Then a notion wild and daring, 'spite the income tax's paring

And a hasty thought of sharing—less than many incomes are—

Made me put a question private, (you can guess what I would drive at.)

"You must work the sum to prove it," clanked the careless tonga-bar.

"Simple Rule of Two will prove it," lilted back the tonga-bar.