Читать книгу Browning's Shorter Poems - Robert Browning - Страница 20

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;

So did the Corporation, too.

For council dinners made rare havoc

°158With Claret,° Moselle,° Vin-de-Grave,° Hock°; And half the money would replenish °160Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish°. To pay this sum to a wandering fellow With a gypsy coat of red and yellow! "Beside," quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink, "Our business was done at the river's brink; We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, And what's dead can't come to life, I think. So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink[page 9] From the duty of giving you something for drink, And a matter of money to put in your poke; 170But as for the guilders, what we spoke Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. Beside, our losses have made us thrifty. A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!"