But what can you expect if you come on a Monday?
Our French cook's away too, I vow and declare--
But if you would see us with something to spare,
Let's know when you're coming, or come on a Sunday;
For that of all others, for churchmen or sinners,
A day is for gorging with extra good dinners.

[Illustration: "AND THAT IS JUST WHAT, AS OUR BUTCHER EXPLAINS, THE
DICKENS HAS PLAYED WITH OUR BEEF AND OUR MUTTON."]

If Merdle had told me a friend would be here,
A dinner I'd get up in spite of the bills--
I often tell butcher he's wonderful dear--
He says every calf that a butcher now kills,
Will cost near as much as the price of a steer,
Before all the banks in their discount expanded
And flooded the country with 'lamp-black and rags,'
Which poor men has ruined and shipwrecked and stranded
On Poverty's billows and quick-sands and crags.

And that is just what, as our butcher explains,
The dickens has played with our beef and our mutton;
But something is gained, for, with all of his pains,
The poor man won't make of himself such a glutton.

I'm sure if they knew what a sin 't is to eat,
When things are all selling at extravagant prices,
That poor folks more saving would be of their meat,
And learn by example how little suffices.