Page:Masterpieces of American Humor (Little Blue Book 959).djvu/26

And Jones then asked the chair for a suspension of the rules,

Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost mules.

Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault;

It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones's family vault;

He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown,

And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town.

Now, I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent

To say another is an ass—at least, to all intent;

Nor should the individual who happens to be meant

Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent.

Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order—when

A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,

And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor,

And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.

For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage

In a warfare with the remnants of a paleozoic age;