Debarr'd from general talk, you droop
Beneath his buzz, from orient soup,
To occidental Cheshire.

He who can only talk with one,
Should stay at home, and talk with none--
At all events, to strangers,
Like village epitaphs of yore,
He ought to cry, "Long time I bore,"
To warn them of their dangers.

There are whose kind inquiries scan
Your total kindred, man by man,
Son, brother, cousin joining.
They ask about your wife, who's dead,
And eulogize your uncle Ned,
Who died last week for coining.

When join'd to such a son of prate,
His queries I anticipate,
And thus my lee-way fetch up--
"Sir, all my relatives, I vow,
Are perfectly in health--and now
I'd thank you for the ketchup!"

Others there are who but retail
Their breakfast journal, now grown stale,
In print ere day was dawning;
When folks like these sit next to me,
They send me dinnerless to tea;