The Lobster Quadrille>
Go on with the next verse,the Gryphon repeated:>it begins
I passed by the garden.>>>
Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come
wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:
“I passed by his garden, and marked,
with one eye,>
How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie:>
The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy,
and meat,>
While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.>
When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,>
Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:>
While the Panther received
&strong-syll;knife> and fork
with a growl,
And concluded the banquet by —”>
The grim final words, eating the owl,> appear in the 1886 printed
edition of Savile Clarke's operetta. Another and probably earlier
version of the last couplet, given in Stuart Collingwood's biography,
runs:
But the panther obtained both the fork and the knife,>
&strong-syll;So,
when &weak-syll;he
&strong-syll;lost> his temper,
the owl lost its life.
What is> the use of repeating all that stuff,
the Mock Turtle interrupted,>if you don't explain it as you go on?
It's by far the most confusing thing I> ever heard!>