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Mr. Kipling took a real interest in the work and produced the following:

“What is the gas-stove going for?”
Asked Files-On-Parade.
“To curl my hair, to curl my hair?”
His Little Sister said.

“What makes you curl so tight, so tight?”
Asked Files-On-Parade.
“I’m thinkin’ ’twill be damp to-night,”
His Little Sister said.

“For you know that when I’m good, I’m just as good as I can be.
And when I’m bad, there’s nobody can be as bad as me.
So I’m thinkin’ I’ll be very good to-night, because, you see,
I’m thinkin’ I’ll be horrid in the morning.”

Mr. Hood was in a reminiscent mood, so he looked backward:

I remember, I remember,
That curl I used to wear;
It cost a dollar ninety-eight
(It was the best of hair).
It always stayed right in its place,
It never went astray;
But now, I sometimes wish the wind
Had blown that curl away.

I remember, I remember,
How good I used to be;
Why, St. Cecelia at her best
Was not as good as me.
I never tore my pinafore,
Or got my slippers wet;
I let my brother steal my cake–
That boy is living yet!

I remember, I remember,
How bad I’ve sometimes been;
How all my little childish tricks
Were counted fearful sin.
I’m glad I cut up, anyway,
But still ’tis little joy
To know I could have played worse pranks
If I had been a boy.

Mr. Wordsworth took it quietly:

I met a gentle Little Girl,
She was sixteen years, she said;
Her hair was thick; that same old curl
Was hanging from her head.

“You’re very, very good, you say;
And you look good to me,
Yet you are bad. Tell me, I pray,
Sweet maid, how that may be?”

Then did the Little Girl reply
(The curl bobbed on her forehead),
“When I am good, I’m good as pie,
And when I’m bad, I’m horrid.”

At the next meeting of the Re-Echo Club there was achieved a vindication of the limerick. “It has been said,” remarked the President of the Re-Echo Club, “by ignorant and undiscerning would-be critics that the Limerick is not among the classic and best forms of poetry, and, indeed, some have gone so far as to say that it is not poetry at all.

“A brief consideration of its claims to preeminence among recognized forms of verse will soon convince any intelligent reader of its superlative worth and beauty.

“As a proof of this, let us consider the following Limerick, which in the opinion of connoisseurs is the best one ever written:

There was a young lady of Niger,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They came back from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

Now let us compare this exquisite bit of real poesy with what Chaucer has written on the same theme:

A mayde ther ben, in Niger born and bredde;
Hire merye smyle went neere aboute hire hedde.
Uponne a beeste shee rood, a tyger gaye,
And sikerly shee laughen on hire waye.

Anon, as it bifel, bak from the ryde
Ther came, his sadel hangen doone bisyde,
The tyger. On his countenaunce the whyle
Ther ben behelde a gladnesse and a smyle.

Again, Austin Dobson chose to throw off the thing in triolet form:

She went for a ride,
That young lady of Niger;
Her smile was quite wide
As she went for a ride;
But she came back inside,
With the smile on the tiger!
She went for a ride,
That young lady of Niger.