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I	A
Biggs was missing Biggs had vanished all the town was in a ferment	B
For if ever man was looked to for an edifying end	C
With due mortuary outfit and a popular interment	C
It was Biggs the universal guide philosopher and friend	C
	-
But the man had simply vanished speculation wove no tissue	D
That would hold a drop of water each new theoryfell flat	C
It was most unsatisfactory and hanging on the issue	D
Were a thousand wagers ranging from a pony to a hat	C
	-
Not a trace could search discover in the township or without it	C
And the river had been dragged from morn till night with no avail	E
His continuity had ceased and that was all about it	C
And there wasn't even a grease spot left behind to tell the tale	E
That so staid a man as Biggs was should be swallowed up in mystery	F
Lent an increment to wonder he who trod no doubtful paths	G
But stood square to his surroundings with no cloud upon his history	F
As the much respected lessee of the Corporation Baths	H
	-
His affairs were all in order since the year the alligator	I
With a startled river bather made attempt to coalesce	J
The resulting wave of decency had greater grown and greater	I
And the Corporation Baths had been a marvellous success	J
	-
Nor could trouble in the household solve the riddle of his clearance	K
For his bride was now in heaven and the issue of the match	L
Was a patient drudge whose virtues were as plain as her appearance	K
Just the sort whereto no scandal could conceivably attach	L
	-
So the Whither and the Why alike mysterious were counted	C
And as Faith steps in to aid where baffled Reason must retire	M
There were those averred so good a man as Biggs might well have mounted	C
Up to glory like Elijah in a chariot of fire	I
	-
For indeed he was a good man when he sat beside the portal	N
Of the Bath house at his pigeon hole a saint within a frame	O
We used to think his face was as the face of an immortal	N
As he handed us our tickets and took payment for the same	O
	-
And oh the sweet advice with which he made of such occasion	P
A duplicate detergent for our morals and our limbs	Q
For he taught us that decorum was the essence of salvation	P
And that cleanliness and godliness were merely synonyms	Q
	-
But that open air ablution in the river was a treason	P
To the purer instincts fit for dogs and aborigines	Q
And that wrath at such misconduct was the providential reason	P
For the jaws of alligators and the tails of stingarees	Q
	-
But alas our friend was gone our guide philosopher and tutor	I
And we doubled our potations just to clear the inner view	D
But we only saw the darklier through the bottom of the pewter	I
And the mystery seemed likewise to be multiplied by two	D
	-
And the worst was that our failure to unriddle the enigma	R
In the rags of rival towns was made a by word and a scoff	S
Till each soul in the community felt branded with the stigma	R
Of the unexplained damnation of poor Biggs's taking off	S
	-
So a dozen of us rose and swore this thing should be no longer	I
Though the means that Nature furnished had been tried without result	C
There were forces supersensual that higher were and stronger	I
And with consentaneous clamour we pronounced for the occult	C
	-
Then Joe Thomson slung a tenner and Jack Robinson a tanner	I
And each according to his means respectively disbursed	C
And a letter in your humble servant's most seductive manner	I
Was despatched to Sludge the Medium recently of Darlinghurst	C
	-
II	A
I am Biggs the spirit said 't was through the medium's lips he said it	C
But the voice that spoke the accent too were Biggs's very own	T
Be it therefore not set down to our unmerited discredit	C
That collectively we sickened as we recognized the tone	T
From a saurian interior Christian friends I now address you	D
And Oh heaven or its correlative groaned shudderingly we	F
While there yet remains a scrap of my identity for bless you	D
This ungodly alligator's fast assimilating me	F
	-
For although through nine abysmal days I've fought with his digestion	P
Being hostile to his processes and loth to pulpify	S
It is rapidly becoming a most complicated question	P
How much of me is crocodile how much of him is I	A
	-
And oh my friends 'tis sorrow's crown of sorrow to remember	I
That this sacrilegious reptile owed me nought but gratitude	C
For I bought him from a showman twenty years since come November	I
And I dropped him in the river for his own and others' good	C
	-
It had grieved me that the spouses of our townsmen and their daughters	Q
Should be shocked by river bathers and their indecorous ways	Q
So I cast my bread that is my alligator on the waters	Q
	-
And I found it in a credit balance after many days	Q
	-
Years I waited but at last there came the rumour long expected	C
And the out of door ablutionists forsook their wicked paths	Q
And the issues of my handiwork divinely were directed	C
In a constant flow of custom to the Corporation Baths	Q
	-
'Twas a weakling when I bought it 'twas so young that you could pet it	C
But with all its disadvantages I reckoned it would do	D
And it did Oh lay the moral well to heart and don't forget it	C
Put decorum first and all things shall be added unto you	D
	-
Lies all lies I've done with virtue Why should I be interested	C
In the cause of moral progress that I served so long in vain	U
When the fifteen hundred odd I've so judiciously invested	C
Will but go to pay the debts of some young rip who marries Jane	U
	-
But the reptile overcomes me my identity is sinking	V
Let me hasten to the finish let my words be few and fit	C
I was walking by the river in the starry silence thinking	V
Of what Providence had done for me and I had done for it	C
	-
I had reached the saurian's rumoured haunt where oft in fatal folly	F
I had dropped garotted dogs to keep his carnal craving up	W
Said Joe Thomson in a whisper That explains my Highland collie	F
Said Bob Williams sotto voce That explains my Dandy pup	W
	-
I had passed to moral questions and found comfort in the notion	P
That fools are none the worse for things not being what they seem	X
When behold a seeming log became instinct with life and motion	P
And with sudden curvature of tail upset me in the stream	X
	-
Then my leg as in a vice But here the revelation faltered	C
And the medium rose and shook himself remarking with a smile	Y
That the requisite conditions were irrevocably altered	C
For the personality of Biggs was lost in crocodile	Y
	-
	-
Now whether Sludge's story would succeed in holding water	I
Is more perhaps than one has any business to expect	C
But I know that on the strength of it I married Biggs's daughter	I
And I found a certain portion of the narrative correct	C

James Brunton Stephens

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