Now, isn't that refined and beautiful?"

"It is--not!" said Chet. "That is only a play upon pronunciation."

"Carping critics!" exclaimed Lance. "Go ahead, Bobby. Let's hear the
others."

As Bobby had been saving them up for just such an opportunity as this, she
proceeded to read:

"'There lived in the City of Worcester
A lively political borcester,
Who would sit on his gate
When his own candidate
Was passing, and crow like a rorcester!"

"Help! Help!" moaned Chet, falling into the cook's rocking chair and making
it creak tremendously.

"Don't break up the furniture," his sister advised him, as she took a peep
at the pies in the oven.

"'Pies and poetry'!" exclaimed Jess. "Go ahead, Bobby. Relieve your
constitution of those sad, sad doggerels."

Nothing loath, the younger girl, and with twinkling eyes, sing-songed the
following:

"'There was a young sailor of Gloucester,
Who had a sweetheart, but he loucest'er.