• Yet in your character I've found
• An inconsistency or two.
• You seem to have long years to spare
• When there's a promise to fulfil:
• And yet how punctual you were
• In calling with that little bill!'

• 'One can't be too deliberate,'
• Said Paul, 'in parting with one's pelf.
• With bills, as you correctly state,
• I'm punctuality itself:
• A man may surely claim his dues:
• But, when there's money to be lent,
• A man must be allowed to choose
• Such times as are convenient!'

• It chanced one day, as Peter sat
• Gnawing a crust--his usual meal--
• Paul bustled in to have a chat,
• And grasped his hand with friendly zeal.
• 'I knew,' said he, 'your frugal ways:
• So, that I might not wound your pride
• By bringing strangers in to gaze,
• I've left my legal friend outside!

• 'You well remember, I am sure,
• When first your wealth began to go,
• And people sneered at one so poor,
• I never used my Peter so!
• And when you'd lost your little all,
• And found yourself a thing despised,
• I need not ask you to recall
• How tenderly I sympathised!

• 'Then the advice I've poured on you,
• So full of wisdom and of wit:
• All given gratis, though 'tis true
• I might have fairly charged for it!
• But I refrain from mentioning
• Full many a deed I might relate
• For boasting is a kind of thing
• That I particularly hate.

• 'How vast the total sum appears
• Of all the kindnesses I've done,
• From Childhood's half-forgotten years
• Down to that Loan of April One!
• That Fifty Pounds! You little guessed
• How deep it drained my slender store:
• But there's a heart within this breast,
• And I WILL LEND YOU FIFTY MORE!'

• 'Not so,' was Peter's mild reply,
• His cheeks all wet with grateful tears ;
• No man recalls, so well as I,
• Your services in bygone years:
• And this new offer, I admit,
• Is very very kindly meant--