Evening News (London), June 22, 1903
 

The Perils of the Egg.

A Paris doctor has discovered that the administration to a hen of any medicine results in a doctored egg, and he recommends the medical faculty to make use of the discovery.

 

With eggs in days of yore I toyed—
 I’m free to own it—often.
I matutinally enjoyed
 A hard-boiled or a soft ’un,
Aye, punctual as the breakfast bell
 Rang loudly from the basement,
Their faint but appetising smell
 Was wafted through my casement.

But those were days when eggs were eggs,
 Not medicinal potions,
Not merely, so to phrase it, pegs
 For weird, fantastic notions.
My boyhood’s shell was full of meat,
 I revelled in (ad lib.) it.
But oh! the hideous deceit
 That eggs to-day exhibit.

In dealing with the modern egg,
 Please pause e’er you begin it.
Inspect it carefully, I beg,
 There’s something nasty in it.
Be wary. Scrutinise it well,
 Lest noxious drugs be present.
There’s castor-oil within that shell,
 Or things still more unpleasant.

Myself, I’ve had to give them up,
 They’re far too great a gamble.
No more I fill the fragile cup,
 No more I poach or scramble.
I’ve scorned the false, deceptive yolk,
 The treacherous white forsaken,
And, leaving eggs to other folk,
 I’m living now on bacon.


 

Printed unsigned in newspaper; entered by Wodehouse in Money Received for Literary Work.