The Miser: A Merry Free Free Verse

In Vienna the kronen is now at 165,000 to the £1, and the public fears that it is going the way of the Russian rouble.

Last night we had a dream,
We dreamed of a
Miser who
Loved money, and
He started out with a
Quid
In real money
With which he might
Have bought
A pair of brown paper boots, or sev-
eral shaves, or twenty cocktails, or
a bet on a dead horse, or a mode-
rately large piece of rump steak,
or a seat in a theatre and five
synthetic chocolates;
But he decided
To travel abroad and
Beat
International exchange; so he started
out with his good
Quid.
He first went to France, and for his
quid got a pocketful of francs.
Then he went to Germany and
exchanged the francs for a sack-
ful of marks. He took the sack-
ful of marks to Austria and
swapped them for a wagon-load
of kronen, which, after much
labor, he managed to get into
Russia, where he contrived to ex-
change his wagon-load of kronen
for a shipload of roubles. And
he was glad, because

He liked the rustle of
The paper.
Then he sailed back home, and feel-
ing very hungry, he exchanged
his shipload of roubles for
A meat pie.