SERIO-COMIC VERSE. 633 



And when in tuning my guitar 



The interval would not come right, 

 " This string," you said, " is strained too far, 

 'Tis forty dynes, 1 at least too tight !" 



And then you told me, as I sang, 



What overtones were in my clang. 2 



You gabbled on, but every phrase 



"Was stiff with scientific shoddy, 

 The only song you deigned to praise 



Was " Gin a body meet a body," 

 " And even there," you said, " collision 

 Was not described with due precision." 



" In the invariable plane," 



You told me, " lay the impulsive couple." 3 

 You seized my hand you gave me pain, 



By torsion of a wrist so supple ; 

 You told me what that wrench would do, 

 " 'Twould set me twisting round a screw." 4 



Were every hair of every tress 



(Which you, no doubt, imagine mine), 



Drawn towards you with its breaking stress 

 A stress, say, of a megadyne, 



That tension I would sooner suffer 



Than meet again with such a duffer ! 



1 Dyne the force which, acting on a gramme for a second, would 

 give a velocity of a centimetre per second. The weight of a gramme 

 is about 980 dynes. 



2 See Sound and Music, by Sedley Taylor, p. 89. 



3 See Poinsot, TMorie nouvelle de la rotation des corps. 



4 See Prof. Ball on the Theory of Screws, Phil Trans., 1873. 



