Of thus-excruciated JONES;
BROWN's hand the same affliction owns.

At length his finger-tips have pressed
The fingers of his JONES distressed:
Both curvatures then sink to rest.

A sort of anguish lisped proceeds
Prom either's mouth, but neither heeds
The other's half-heroic deeds.

Exhausted, neither much can say;
Complacent, each pursues his way;
And JONES and BBOWN have lived to-day.

For both have sought by strenuous strain
To demonstrate, in face of pain,
That friends they were, and friends remain.

Ah, wonderful! Can Poets deem
Self-sacrifice a fading dream?
Are salutations what they seem?

Is BROWN some Altruist in disguise,
And JONES an Ibsenite likewise,
That thus they flop and agonise?--

Or are the pair affected fools,
Who catch by rote the silly rules
Of third-rate fashionable schools?