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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476410" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Diplomatic Platypus</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I had a duck-billed platypus when I was up at Trinity,<br>With whom I soon discovered a remarkable affinity.<br>He used to live in lodgings with myself and Arthur Purvis,<br>And we all went up together for the Diplomatic Service.<br>I had a certain confidence, I own, in his ability,<br>He mastered all the subjects with remarkable facility;<br>And Purvis, though more dubious, agreed that he was clever,<br>But no one else imagined he had any chance whatever.<br>I failed to pass the interview, the board with wry grimaces<br>Took exception to my boots and then objected to my braces,<br>And Purvis too was failed by an intolerant examiner<br>Who said he had his doubts as to his sock-suspender's stamina.<br>Our summary rejection, though we took it with urbanity<br>Was naturally wounding in some measure to our vanity;<br>The bitterness of failure was considerably mollified,<br>However, by the ease with which our platypus had qualified.<br>The wisdom of the choice, it soon appeared, was undeniable;<br>There never was a diplomat more thoroughly reliable.<br>He never made rash statements his enemies might hold him to,<br>He never stated anything, for no one ever told him to,<br>And soon he was appointed, so correct was his behaviour,<br>Our Minister (without Portfolio) to Trans-Moravia.<br>My friend was loved and honoured from the Andes to Esthonia,<br>He soon achieved a pact between Peru and Patagonia,<br>He never vexed the Russians nor offended the Rumanians,<br>He pacified the Letts and yet appeased the Lithuanians,<br>Won approval from his masters down in Downing Street so wholly, O,<br>He was soon to be rewarded with the grant of a Portfolio.<br>When on the Anniversary of Greek Emancipation,<br>Alas! He laid an egg in the Bulgarian Legation.<br>This untoward occurrence caused unheard-of repercussions,<br>Giving rise to epidemics of sword-clanking in the Prussians.<br>The Poles began to threaten, and the Finns began to flap at him,<br>Directing all the blame for this unfortunate mishap at him;<br>While the Swedes withdrew entirely from the Anglo-Saxon dailies<br>The right of photographing the Aurora Borealis,<br>And, all efforts at rapprochement in the meantime proving barren,<br>The Japanese in self-defence annexed the Isle of Arran.<br>My platypus, once thought to be more cautious and more tentative<br>Than any other living diplomatic representative,<br>Was now a sort of warning to all diplomatic students<br>Of the risks attached to negligence, the perils of imprudence,<br>And, branded in the Honours List as 'Platypus, Dame Vera',<br>Retired, a lonely figure, to lay eggs in Bordighera.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Patrick+Barrington">Patrick Barrington</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=476410" data-title="The Diplomatic Platypus de Patrick Barrington" data-description="I had a duck-billed platypus when I was up at Trinity,
With whom I soon discovered a remarkable affinity.
He used to live in lodgings with myself and Arthur Purvis,
And we all went up together for the Diplomatic Service.
I had a certain confidence..."></div>
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