Lord, what a wit I'ld make
If I'd a set grin painted on my face.
And such is life, I'ld say a hundred times,
And each time set the world aroar afresh
At my original humour. Missed a hoop!
Why, man alive, you've naught to grumble at.
I've boggled every hoop since I was six.
I'm fifty-five; and I've run round a ring
Would make this potty circus seem a pinhole.
I wasn't born to sawdust. I'd the world
For circus ...
Merry Andrew:
It's no time for crowing now.
I know a gentleman, and take on trust
The silver spoon and all. My teeth were cut
Upon a horseshoe: and I wasn't born
To purple and fine linen--but to sawdust,
To sawdust, as you say--brought up on sawdust.
I've had to make my daily bread of sawdust:
Ay, and my children's,--children's, that's the rub,
As Shakespeare says ...
Gentleman John:
Ah, there you go again!
What a rare wit to set the ring aroar--
As Shakespeare says! Crowing? A gentleman?
Man, didn't you say you'd never missed a hoop?
It's only gentlemen who miss no hoops,
Clean livers, easy lords of life who take
Each obstacle at a leap, who never fail.
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