there was a worthy doctor once

who unlike mother hubbard

had many bones (a skeleton)

shut up within a cupboard.

one night the worthy doctor dreamt,

(he'd been up rather late)

his articulated skeleton

did thus articulate:—

"come! doctor, come! confess that you're a fraud

a very specious humbug and a sham.

though meek as any lamb.

don't glare at me! i'll tell it not abroad

but merely in your ears alone applaud

the wily artifice of pill and dram.

"you know as well as i do, you don't mean,

one half the things you tell 'our patient.' no!

why, i can clearly show,

that mrs. gobbles' ailments are but spleen,

('tis quite the simplest cause that e'er was seen)

and yet what crack-jaw names you now bestow.

"because, forsooth, the longer you can prey

upon her pocket, that doth please you best,

so, doctor, you protest

'the case is serious,' from day to day,

'and it must run its course,' you gravely say

with wisest head-shake and a look distressed.

"and then those pills! absurd you know to try

to gammon me with bolluses of bread;

while aqua p. i've said,

often, is good (if nothing else be nigh)

to drink when thirsty and our throats are dry,

but not for medicine—though coloured red.

"so, doctor, when we're by ourselves alone,

don't try to put on 'side' with me, good lack,

for i can surely track

full many a 'fatal case' you'd fain disown.

and i can tell aright why you should groan

when harmless ducks in passing cry 'quack! quack!'

* * *

the doctor woke. "dear me!" said he,

"this skeleton's too wise

for me." he therefore packed it up,

and sent it off to guy's.