Page:Carroll - Phantasmagoria and other poems (1869).djvu/49

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PHANTASMAGORIA.
37

"But if the host's a man like you—
I mean a man of sense;
And if the house is not too new—"
"Why, what has that" said I, "to do
With ghosts' convenience?"

"A new house does not suit, you know—
It's such a job to trim it:
But, after twenty years or so,
The wainscotings begin to go,
So twenty is the limit"

'To trim' was not a phrase I could
Remember having heard:
"Perhaps," I said, "you'll be so good
As tell me what is understood
Exactly by that word?"