SPEAKER's Mace.

* * * * *

THE DAMSELS OF DIEPPE;

_OR, THE LEGEND OF LIONEL._

"Newhaven to Dieppe," he cried, but, on the voyage there,
He felt appalling qualms of what the French call _mal de mer_;
While, when the steward was not near, he struck Byronic attitudes,
And made himself most popular by pretty little platitudes.
And, while he wobbled on the waves, be sure they never slep',
While waiting for their LIONEL, the Damsels of Dieppe.

He landed with a jaunty air, but feeling rather weak,
While all the French and English girls cried out, "_C'est magnifique!_"
They reck'd not of his bilious hue, but murmur'd quite ecstatical,
"Blue coat, brass buttons, and straw hat,--_c'est tout-à-fait_
piratical!"
He hadn't got his land-legs, and he walked with faltering step,
But still they thought it _comme-il-faut_, those Damsels of Dieppe.

The Douane found him circled round by all the fairest fair,
The while he said, in lofty tones, he'd nothing to declare;
He turned to one girl who stood near, and softly whisper'd, "Fly, O
NELL!"
But all the others wildly cried, "Give us a chance, O LIONEL!"
And thus he came to shore from all the woes of Father Nep.,
With fatal fascinations for the Damsels of Dieppe.