[Illustration: "A ready-made Comedian with fifty quid a week."]

Some years ago a babe was born--I need not name the place--
With a puffy, pasty, podgy, gutta-percha sort of face,
Which wrinkles sub-divided into funny little bits,
While beady eyes peered cunningly behind two tiny slits.

His nose was like a mushroom of the foreign button sort,
His form was quaint and chubby, and his legs were extra short;
That his nurse spoke like SAPPHIRA, I have always had a fear,
When she said he was a "beauty," and a "pretty little dear."

Yes, such remarks were really of the truth, a dreadful stretch,
For, in point of fact, that baby was a hideous little wretch;
And in course of time he grew up--though a loving mother's joy--
Into quite a champion specimen of the genius "ugly boy."

At school his teasing comrades gave him many comic names,
And he became the victim of all sorts of naughty games;
Nor did the master like him, for he felt that such a face,
Mid a row of ruddy youngsters, was extremely out of place.

In time, his father placed him in the City--as a clerk--
Where his personal appearance excited much remark;
But he fell out with his principal, whose customers complained,
That his clerk was making faces, and said "Bosh!" when he explained.

On perceiving from the office that he never would be missed,
As Mr. GILBERT puts it, he determined to enlist;