As stiff as any stone.

    There came a burst, the water pipes

    And plugs, oh, where were they?

    Ask of the soulless plumber man

    Who called around next day.

    The Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room,

    And eats his meat and drinks his ale,

    And beats the maid with her unused broom,

    And the lazy lout with his idle flail;

    But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn,

    And hies him away ere the break of dawn.

    The shade of Denmark fled from the sun,

    And the Cocklane ghost from the barn-loft cheer,

    The fiend of Faust was a faithful one,

    Agrippa's demon wrought in fear,

    And the devil of Martin Luther sat

    By the stout monk's side in social chat.

    The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him

    Who seven times crossed the deep,

    Twined closely each lean and withered limb,

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