Best Famous Operandi Poems

The Post That Fitted

 Ere the seamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to marry
An attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called "my little Carrie.
"
Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way.

Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight poor rupees a day?

Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished quarters --
Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boffkin's daughters.

Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch,
But the Boffkins knew that Minnie mightn't make another match.


So they recognised the business and, to feed and clothe the bride,
Got him made a Something Something somewhere on the Bombay side.

Anyhow, the billet carried pay enough for him to marry --
As the artless Sleary put it: -- "Just the thing for me and Carrie.
"

Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin -- impulse of a baser mind?
No! He started epileptic fits of an appalling kind.

[Of his modus operandi only this much I could gather: --
"Pears's shaving sticks will give you little taste and lots of lather.
"]

Frequently in public places his affliction used to smite
Sleary with distressing vigour -- always in the Boffkins' sight.

Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his ring,
Told him his "unhappy weakness" stopped all thought of marrying.


Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy, --
Epileptic fits don't matter in Political employ, --
Wired three short words to Carrie -- took his ticket, packed his kit --
Bade farewell to Minnie Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit.


Four weeks later, Carrie Sleary read -- and laughed until she wept --
Mrs.
 Boffkin's warning letter on the "wretched epilept.
" .
 .
 .

Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs.
 Boffkin sits
Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits.