Classic Poem

How many legs, " a wag once said,
" Would my dog have, if you should call
His tail a leg? Now add them up;
How many would he have in all? "

" Why, five of course, " the man replied:
The wag laughed loud, " Why, don't you know
That, though you call a tail a leg,
The calling wouldn't make it so? "

A joke our man could never see;
And, when he was to Congress sent,
He soon devised a mighty scheme
That should enrich the continent.

He said, " If eighty-seven cents
Were called a hundred, and, if we
Should say that paper's good as gold,
Why, then, how rich the country'd be! "

Then all the statesmen took it up,
Astonished at the wisdom rare!
They voted rascals honest men,
And all the ugly women fair.