Failed to secure a pass degree.
Years sped--some twenty--ere again
Jim Startin swam into my ken.
I met him strolling down the Strand
Well-dressed, well-nourished, sleek and bland,
A high-class journalistic swell--
The Headline Expert of _The Yell_.
Great at the art, in peaceful days,
Of finding means our scalps to raise,
The War had since revealed in him
A super-Transatlantic vim,
And day by day his paper's bills
Gave us fresh epileptic thrills.
The sons of Belial, in the rhyme
Of DRYDEN, had a glorious time,
But never managed to attain
To Jim's success in giving pain.
But while his power was at its height
It perished in a single night;
For, with his bills by law abolished,
Jim's occupation was demolished;
Headlines that can't be blazed abroad
On bills and posters are a fraud;
They cease to titillate the mob
Or draw the pennies from its fob,
So Jim was "fired" and lost his job.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Lady (to coalheavers)._ "_SO_ SWEET OF YOU TO COME. I DO