A trifle, if you please.”

But I was thinking of a plan

To dye one’s whiskers green,

And always use so large a fan

That they could not be seen.

So, having no reply to give

To what the old man said,

I cried, “Come, tell me how you live!”

And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale:

He said “I go my ways,

And when I find a mountain-rill,