SLAMS 
 OF LIFE 
 
 J. P. MCEVOT 
 
MHO. 
 
SLAMS OF LIFE 
 
SLAMS 
 OF LIFE 
 
 ^{alice for dll, and Charity 
 
 Assembled in Tfyyme by 
 
 J. P. 
 
 *With black and white interruptions 
 by 
 
 FRANK KING 
 
 Published by 
 P.F.VOLLAND COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 
Copyright 1919 
 
 P. F. Volland Company 
 
 Chicago, U. S. A. 
 
 (All rights reserved) 
 
 Third Edition 
 
In Which the Author Introduces Himself in a 
 Few Well-Chosen Words 
 
 I WOULD have had these verses published long ago 
 except for the difficulty of finding someone who 
 would write them. Finally I submitted the job to 
 my favorite author who readily agreed to write the 
 verses. I think he has done very well indeed. 
 
 But, perhaps, I am prejudiced in his favor. It 
 would be plausible for I have known him ever since we 
 were children together. What a cunning, precocious 
 child he was! At the age of twelve years he knew 
 nearly all of the alphabet and could count up to six 
 with almost perfect ease. 
 
 When he was fifteen he could make change, but since 
 then has had little opportunity to make use of this 
 valuable knowledge. 
 
 He celebrated his twenty-first birthday by completing 
 a correspondence school course on the Slide Trombone. 
 It was an easy step from that to the writing of humor 
 ous verses. 
 
 Owing to the carelessness of proper authorities, he 
 met a publisher. This book is the result of that 
 meeting. 
 
 It is useless for me to attempt to enumerate the 
 many remarkable features of this book, therefore I shall 
 do so. In the first place you will notice how each page 
 follows the preceding one. This is planned so you can 
 skip around more easily. Secondly, this book contains 
 nearly all the punctuation marks now used in our best 
 broad-A society. Compare the punctuation marks in 
 this book with those in any other, no matter what the 
 price. 
 
 Another splendid feature: each sentence ends with a 
 period. The publishers are to be congratulated for 
 insisting upon sufficient periods despite the fact the cost 
 of first class periods has increased three hundred per 
 cent on account of the peace. It was necessary to import 
 
 [71 
 
 763572 
 
each period and some of them had very narrow escapes, 
 indeed. However, it is with pride the publishers and I 
 assure you each period is of full size and guaranteed 
 not to shrink or lose its color. 
 
 Most of these verses, I understand, have appeared in 
 numerous magazines and newspapers who are to be con 
 gratulated upon their good taste, but who may not be 
 mentioned here because of the obnoxious publicity which 
 would accrue to them thereby. The author tells me that 
 he has had great difficulty in keeping these magazines 
 and newspapers pacified. They hound him day and night 
 for his imperishable work and he spends a miserable 
 existence tossing little hunks to first one and then the 
 other, as they feed fish to the seals in the circus. 
 
 There are some verses included which have never 
 before seen the light of day. The author says they 
 are good. We shall see. 
 
 Acknowledgements are made to Noah Webster for 
 the use of some of his words. 
 
 My favorite author upon completing the collection 
 of these verses asked me to write this foreword. As he 
 modestly put it: "I know of no one who could possibly 
 do it half so well." 
 
 I believe the man s right! 
 
 J. P. McEvov. 
 
 [81 
 
Ihis book, is dedicated 
 
 to 
 
 JSroiher JZaymonds Sishr 
 Friend Wife (Herself). 
 
WHEN THE MISSUS GOES AWAY 
 
 The grand old Colosseum, 
 
 If what is writ is true, 
 Is spraddled over lots of ground 
 
 And scrapes the starry blue; 
 But though tis vast and spacious 
 
 I humbly rise to say 
 My six room flat seems twice as large 
 
 When the Missus goes away. 
 
 From here to Ursa Major 
 
 Is quite a husky hike. 
 The Lincoln Way from coast to coast 
 
 Is not a puny pike, 
 But when the wife is visiting, 
 
 And days drag on and on, 
 My little hall, that once was small, 
 
 Goes clear to Helangon. 
 
 The roaming, rolling ranges 
 
 That rove our mighty west, 
 The Pampas of the Argentine 
 
 Are lonely at their best; 
 But they are close and crowded 
 
 And riotous and gay 
 Compared to my little six room flat 
 
 When the Missus goes away. 
 
 [iil 
 
LINES TO A MOVIE VAMPIRE 
 
 I sing today the Vampire of the Movie, 
 
 I sing of Sheeza Beara and she is 
 Whose architecture Doric 
 Is a clutter of caloric 
 
 As she vamps it in her transcalescent biz; 
 I love to see her zaz a bit in Zaza, 
 
 She writhes, she lures, she palpitates, she quivahs! 
 You ask me has she got the props? She haza! 
 
 She agitates my very lights and livahs! 
 
 Them eyes of hern, 
 Oh how they burn, 
 
 Oh how they sparkle, snap and yearn! 
 Them liquid coives, 
 Oh how they swoives, 
 It s pretty doggone hard on noives . . . 
 She starts . . . she moves . . . she seems to feel 
 The thrill of life along her keel . . . 
 A rag, a bone and a hank of hair? 
 What do I care? 
 
 She s a bear! She s a bear! She s a bear! 
 There! 
 
 I sing today the Vampire in the Movie 
 
 (Them eyes of hern!) 
 I tell you she s a regular Vesuvy. 
 
 (Oh how they burn!) 
 Her agile architecture is conducive to conjecture, 
 
 (Them sneaky coives!) 
 
 Oh lamp this lyric lecture fore her luscious lure has 
 wrecked your 
 
 Throbbing noives! 
 
 On yon -Paphian piazza you just ought to see her zaza, 
 .Yoil :Just -ought to see her, Yazza! 
 .fias she gat the props? Cazazza! 
 ": Bui s~he_ haza! 
 
 [12] 
 
THAT S A GIFT 
 
 "Observe my bean," the Stranger said, 
 
 "Oh slant the bulge of yonder brow." 
 "You have," said I, "a noble head, 
 
 A sterling coco, I ll allow." 
 "Within that dome," the Stranger cried, 
 Are countless gems of lambent lore, 
 A flock of wisdom, true and tried, 
 A mine of wit, a sapient store. 
 
 "Behind my altitudinous brow 
 
 A corrugated thinker sits. 
 It s in a state of coma now, 
 
 But gosh, it throws sagacious fits! 
 For it is crammed with all the dope 
 
 Of ev ry book on ev ry shelf. 
 You get my modest view, I hope? 
 
 I hate to talk about myself. 
 
 "I know more art than any Taine, 
 
 More Rome than Gibbon, Greece than Grote, 
 More law than old Sir Henry Maine, 
 
 More poetry than any pote; 
 I ve delved as deep as Darwin did, 
 
 Beside me Euclid is a sham, and 
 Socrates a weanling kid, 
 
 I know more words than Percy Hammond!" 
 
 "From which remarks I glean," said I, 
 
 "You are a shrewd and wise gazook, 
 A keen and perspicacious guy, 
 
 A shining light, a gumptious gook." 
 "You re right," he sighed. "My wondrous brain 
 
 Is hep indeed to all the ropes, 
 But still my heart is full of pain: 
 / cannot pick good cantaloupes" 
 
 [13] 
 
WHEN WIFIE DRIVES 
 
 When wifie drives my little bus 
 
 She throws the gears in something thus: 
 
 BLAM! BANCO!! BRRRRRRR!!! 
 
 KERBINGO ! GRRRRRRR ! ! ! 
 
 We crowhop then across the street, 
 
 And amputate a copper s feet, 
 
 And what he says is something neat. 
 
 "Oh have a care," I say to her, 
 
 She shifts the gears: KERBANGO! GRRRRRRR!! 
 
 And tries for third, but slides in low, 
 
 And runs in that a mile or so. 
 
 At last in third the auto rolls, 
 And peaceful peds climb up the poles; 
 The children see us run amuck 
 And get away if they have luck, 
 While horses, mules and dogs and cats 
 Disperse unto their sundry flats. 
 
 Down 
 
 boulevards 
 like 
 this 
 
 we glide 
 and 
 hit 
 the 
 curb 
 on 
 
 either 
 side, 
 
 And drivers glare and coppers swear, 
 But wifie doesn t care a care. 
 Soon to the crowded Loop we snoop, 
 
Wherecarsarethickasonionsoup 
 Andwifiehitsthelastinline 
 
 they theirs get mine 
 
 And get and I 
 
 o And then she rt 
 
 % e 
 
 <u t; 
 
 "S }uu punojB S 
 
 .erehwyna tsom ssorca skcab dna 
 Of course I go to court next day, 
 
 But first 
 I drive 
 
 Straight home 
 This way. 
 
 15 1 
 
BEWARE OF THE GEEZER WITH SOMETHING 
 
 TO SELL 
 
 When a hearty fellow hails me in the cold and clang 
 ing mart, 
 
 And slaps me on the scapula, and hugs me to his heart. 
 
 And cries, "Your amaranthine verse will live for ever 
 more, 
 
 And when you larrup on your lute poetic shades get 
 sore, 
 
 And Homer hangs his humble head he knows he 
 has no chance 
 
 And Shakespeare s ghost goes out and kicks its prim 
 Plutonian pants - 
 
 I say, if any geezer deals me chatter like to this, 
 I do not press upon his brow a cacophonic kiss, 
 Nor do I weep with sheer delight, nor fluctuate his fin 
 I coldly look him in the eye and kick him on the shin, 
 And calmly beat it on my way, because I know full 
 
 well 
 This gonnif has Insurance, Books, or Real Estate to 
 
 sell. 
 
 Oh, oftentimes a goof will come and lean against my 
 
 garb, 
 And tell me I m a Curly Wolf, a Woof-Woof, and a 
 
 Darb! 
 And tell me that my smallest squib commands his 
 
 eager glance, 
 And ditto with his cousins and his sisters and his 
 
 aunts, 
 And he has pasted all my gems in scrapbooks rich 
 
 and rare, 
 And would I give him just one lock of my ambrosial 
 
 hair? 
 
 [16] 
 
Or if not that, my autograph; or if not that, a smile 
 A smile from one as great as I he d treasure for a 
 
 while, 
 A long, long while, and when in after years upon his 
 
 knee 
 His great-grandchildren sat he d say I smole a smile 
 
 for he. 
 But I don t smole a single smile, I bounce upon his 
 
 bell 
 I know he has Insurance, Books, or Real Estate to 
 
 sell! 
 
 Some day a cunning coot will come with convoluted 
 
 conk 
 And drape himself upon my desk and sweetly he will 
 
 honk: 
 "I do not like your line of dope, I think it s awful 
 
 junk; 
 Your prose is quite putrescent and your verse is worse 
 
 than punk; 
 You ve no excuse for living as you do, a worthless 
 
 shirk; 
 Why don t you quit this life of crime and do some 
 
 honest work? * 
 
 I say, some day a cunning coot will warble thus to me, 
 And I ll be flabbergasted, sir, so diff rent it will be. 
 And if he works me fast he ll sell me all he has in 
 
 stock 
 Before I ll have recovered from this unaccustomed 
 
 shock. 
 I ll have to kill him then, or else the secret he would 
 
 tell 
 To others with Insurance, Books, or Real Estate to sell. 
 
 [17] 
 
GOSH, HOW WE DREAD IT! 
 
 They re cleaning house at my house, 
 
 They re clarifying things, 
 The rugs have beat it thither 
 
 And the drapes have taken wings, 
 The bed is in the cellar, 
 
 And the chairs are in the yard. 
 I m sitting in the alley 
 
 And the alley s awful hard. 
 
 They re cleaning house at my house, 
 
 And all our treasure trove, 
 They re waxing up the hardwood 
 
 And blacking up the stove, 
 They re tinting all the ceilings 
 
 A blue or maybe pink 
 It has a wistful odor 
 
 That has put us on the blink. 
 
 They re cleaning house at my house, 
 
 I guess it s for the best; 
 The only clothes that I could find 
 
 This morning was a vest: 
 1 guess I should be patient, still 
 
 I do object, I think, 
 To sleeping in the bathtub 
 
 And eating in the sink. 
 
 [18] 
 
LINES TO AN OLD SCHOOLMATE 
 
 (Dedicated to Sheridan McCabe) 
 
 My old schoolmate is sick today, 
 
 Back home here in our little town, 
 And though around me children play, 
 
 And lilac blooms are tumbling down, 
 And blossoms spray the apple bough, 
 
 And I can hear the honey bee, 
 Somehow my heart is heavy now, 
 
 It doesn t seem like Spring to me. 
 
 In spring we used to hook from school 
 
 And fish all day in Sugar Crick 
 Beside some cool and yellow pool 
 
 Where the grass was long and the willows 
 
 thick, 
 Or we d hunt frogs, would Sherd and I, 
 
 And cook their legs in meal, you see, 
 But now he s sick I guess that s why 
 
 It doesn t seem like Spring to me. 
 
 If we could only tramp the hills 
 
 Together as we used to do, 
 Or dream beside the pleasant rills 
 
 I guess I wouldn t feel so blue; 
 But though the fields are green and gay 
 
 With birds to hear and blooms to see, 
 My boyhood pal is sick today 
 
 It doesn t seem like Spring to me. 
 
 New Burnside, III. 
 
 19] 
 
TO A STRAW CAUBEEN 
 
 (Hibernian slang for Kelly) 
 
 O, straw chapeau, when you were new, 
 
 A crown of pristine beauty you, 
 
 An argent cloud of shimmering sheen, 
 
 A kelly fit for any bean, 
 
 A nimbus on my raven fuzz, 
 
 A luscious lid that s what you wuz, 
 
 But now your glory s one with Greece, 
 
 Your grandeur is of Rome s a piece; 
 
 Your primal pulchritude has blewed 
 
 To vague innocuous desuetude. 
 
 In other words, O straw Caubeen, 
 
 You re on the fritz that s what I mean; 
 
 An evanescent charm you had, 
 
 Too brief a time you made me glad; 
 
 Like to the poet s poppies spread, 
 
 I touched the bloom, the flower was dead; 
 
 A gem of snowy charm today, 
 
 Tomorrow just a piece of hay 
 
 O, adios, farewell to thee, 
 
 Good-bye, good luck, and R.I.P. 
 
 Out yonder stands a sad-eyed cow 
 
 Who ll make a nifty meal of thou, 
 
 And thou, a one time snappy dud, 
 
 Will presto be a juicy cud. 
 
 A common fate is that, alas! 
 
 We die and fertilize the grass 
 
 On which in sweet contentment browse 
 
 A multitude of grateful cows 
 
 Which give us milk which once was we, 
 
 And to ourselves, we drink us see? 
 
 Straw hat, good-bye and R.I.P. 
 
 20 
 
THE PLAYER-PIANO UPSTAIRS 
 
 My soul once was cluttered with gladness and joy, 
 
 My heart was a haven of glee; 
 Each syllable uttered was larded and buttered 
 
 With gayfulness airy and free. 
 My garret cephalic with j aperies Gallic 
 
 Was crammed to exclusion of cares, 
 But all this has passed on the wings of the blast 
 
 There s a player-piano upstairs. 
 
 And now ev ry morning when faint for repose 
 
 I hear its matutinal fuss, 
 Which when I no longer may slumber grows stronger 
 
 And stronger till madly I cuss, 
 Yea, bitterly cuss the sarcophagus ghoul 
 
 Who chauffeurs with murderous fin 
 Insane permutations of sad syncopations 
 
 Accented, I d say, on the "sin." 
 
 It tortures the Poet and Peasant all day, 
 
 And Rubinstein s Melody F, 
 And C. Rusticana that ghoulish pian-a 
 
 Abuses in every clef. 
 The Rosary, too, from its wallops is blue, 
 
 And Killarney it tatters and tears 
 O, words are inutile and puerile and futile 
 
 To limn that piano upstairs. 
 
 And that s why my soul, once a clutter of joy, 
 
 And my heart once a haven of glee, 
 Are sadly senescent, with sorrow liquescent, 
 
 A dunnage of dreary debris. 
 My onion cephalic once gayfully Gallic 
 
 Is now an asylum of cares, 
 My loony medulla, alas! is the fool-a 
 
 That player-piano upstairs. 
 
 [21] 
 
"TO LET TENANT WILL SHOW" 
 
 I do not like the gentle Spring 
 To me it doesn t mean a thing 
 But pests who snoop around our flat 
 And look at this and finger that 
 And question us on things that be 
 Peculiar to our family tree. 
 
 All day they gawp at me and mine, 
 And criticize and carp and whine, 
 And open every private door, 
 And pass remarks about the floor, 
 Or rummage through the pantry shelves 
 And wonder how we feed ourselves. 
 
 "Do you get heat and lots of air?" 
 And "Will they put new paper there?" 
 And "What s inside that other room?" 
 And "Ain t the kitchen like a tomb?" 
 And "How many children have you got? 
 They re such a care" and all that rot. 
 
 They count our silver, lift our rugs, 
 
 And speak of roaches, flies and other forms 
 
 of animal life, 
 
 And when they leave, they send their friends - 
 The dam procession never ends. 
 That s why I sadly rise and sing 
 I do not like the gentle Spring. 
 
 [22] 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF CHILDHOOD 
 
 We talk a curious language, now, around our happy home; 
 The casual stranger thinks that we re gaflooey in the dome. 
 The neighbors say: "Those McEvoys are going off 
 
 their nut; 
 
 They pull the durndest line of talk." And we admit it; but 
 We have to dress our parlance now in baby-proof 
 
 disguise; 
 We have to watch our step these days; our child is 
 
 getting wise. 
 
 When shades of night are falling fast, as some one 
 
 quaintly said, 
 
 I used to blurt it out like this: "Let s put the kid to bed." 
 But now I dare not say them words, them words I 
 
 dare not say, 
 For when she hears me mention "bed," there s simply 
 
 heltopay, 
 
 And so I have to do it thus I speak in accents clear: 
 "Let s p-u-t B-a-b-y to b-e-d, my dear." 
 
 "Please pass the s-u-g-a-r," conserves a lot of spunk. 
 If we said "sugar," Dorothy May would have to have 
 
 a hunk. 
 
 I dare not say, "Let s beat it out and see a movie show." 
 I spell: "M-o-v-i-e-s; let s you and me g-o." 
 And visitors are startled some at our peculiar cry: 
 "H-a-v-e some g-u-m or c-a-n-d-y." 
 
 It s shameful how her mother puts it over one so wee, 
 
 With "G-o-i-n-g today to s-t-o-r-e," 
 
 Or "W-a-t-c-h her pout; she s going to c-r-y." 
 
 I think that she suspects us now; she s getting pretty sly. 
 
 At any rate this spelling stuff has grown on me, I 
 
 guess, 
 For yesterday to "Have a drink?" I answered "Y-e-s." 
 
 [24] 
 
PREPAREDNESS PLUS 
 
 I differ with the prophet who declares we re on the bum. 
 That when it comes to fighting we re the residue and 
 
 scum; 
 
 We may not have a navy that amounts to 30 cents. 
 Our army may be full of prunes and apertures and 
 
 vents, 
 
 But what care we for armies or for navies or for guns? 
 For ammunition, strategy, or even sturdy sons? 
 No enemy would dare to harm our humble habitats; 
 We d tell our William Farnum and he d kick em in the 
 
 slats. 
 
 For have you seen our Farnum slap an engine off the 
 
 track, 
 And chase a mob to helangon and sometimes half-way 
 
 back? 
 
 And have you seen him stand a king upon his royal ear, 
 And beat a faithful army to a palpitating smear? 
 How gracefully he hits a big gazabo on the nose 
 And presto! undertakers and some flowers and repose! 
 So do not fear the English or the German or the Jap, 
 Just notify Bill Farnum and he ll chase em off the 
 
 map. 
 
 Then let us offer up our thanks that this is even thus, 
 Let s thank a kindly Providence for taking care of us, 
 For handing us a Farnum to protect our kith and kin, 
 A Farnum who can give the foe a swift one on the 
 
 chin. 
 
 For should a foreign country grow pernickity or raw, 
 We ll laugh our girlish tee hee hee and likewise haw 
 
 haw haw. 
 Have we not William Farnum to defend the mountain 
 
 pass? 
 We have, and William Farnum, girls, can run em out 
 
 of gas. 
 
 [25] 
 
WELL, MEBBE SO I DUNNO 
 
 They tell me these here Fourteen Points 
 
 Will pacify the war-like joints, 
 
 That there won t be no war no more, 
 
 An no more gas an guns an gore, 
 
 An all the pugilistic hicks 
 
 Will put away their knives and bricks - 
 
 Well, mebbe so, 
 
 I dunno. 
 
 They tell me that this here, now, League 
 Will put an end to all intrigue, 
 That all the birds on land an sea 
 Will in their little nests agree, 
 An stead of treating others rough 
 Will bill an coo, an all that stuff, 
 
 Well, mebbe so, 
 
 I dunno. 
 
 The Bolshevik, I m told by some, 
 
 Is not so altogether rum, 
 
 An others say the geek s a curse, 
 
 While still more say he aint so worse, 
 
 An some say this, an some say that 
 
 Do all these guys know where they re at? 
 
 Well, mebbe so, 
 
 I dunno. 
 
 "It is the war" they told us guys 
 When all the prices hit the skies, 
 An now when prices still increase, 
 These eggs retort: "It is the peace"; 
 Some cry "Supply!" -some yell "Demand!" 
 They say we boobs can t understand, 
 
 Well, mebbe so, 
 
 I dunno. 
 
 26] 
 
BAWP-BAWP-BAWP-BAWP-PA 
 
 I ve heard the sweet song of Enrico Cams , 
 And the silver chin-chinning that Bryan can loose, 
 And the soothing palaver that falls on the ear 
 When a son of old Erin is throwing the queer; 
 The lorelei lure of the larynx de luxe 
 May tweak the tympana of garrulous gooks, 
 But sweet as syllabical silver can be 
 It sounds like an oyster in pain by the sea, 
 For today my young Dorothy Mary McE., 
 Said " Bawp-bawp-bawp-bawp-bawp-bawp-BAWP-pa" 
 to me. 
 
 The Greeks in their time had of talkers a score 
 
 Who slung a mean syllable over the floor, 
 
 Isaeus, Aeschines, Demosthenes, too 
 
 Bounced words off the welkin until it was blue, 
 
 But great as Isaeus and take it from Pliny 
 
 He had it on Sunday, Bert Williams and Tinny 
 
 And great as Demosthenes, down by the sea, 
 
 Whose words were as verdure that leans on the lea, 
 
 They pale before Dorothy Mary McE, 
 
 For now she says* Bawp-bawp-bawp-BAWP-pa" to me. 
 
 I hope when I turn in at last for The Sleep, 
 
 And flit up the ladder so golden and steep, 
 
 St. Peter will give me a seat in the rear 
 
 The gall ry will do, where I ll sit down and hear. 
 
 (Can angels sit down?) Well, no matter, I ll sit 
 
 And hark while the cherubim warble a bit. 
 
 No doubt twill be grand they ve had practice, you 
 
 see, 
 
 But all them there Cherubim singing their glee 
 Won t tug at my heart, nor as sweet will it be 
 As when she says "Bawp-bawp-bawp-BAWP-pa" to 
 
 me. 
 
 [27] 
 
THE GIRLS OF TODAY 
 
 I wonder why the flappers wear 
 That tired, bored and sated air, 
 Why ennui sits upon their brows 
 And nothing can their spirits rouse; 
 Dispassionate and blank their gaze, 
 And laissez-faire their weary ways. 
 
 Chic little chits who yesterday 
 
 Were giggling in their girlish way 
 
 Are now sophisticated vamps 
 
 With sinful, soulful, sea-green lamps; 
 
 They ve lived and suffered, Oh! so much! 
 
 And life is a dead sea fruit they touch. 
 
 So would the average man surmise 
 From the hollow stare of their browless eyes. 
 "These," he would say, "have played and lost, 
 They ve shook with fate and paid the cost; 
 One by one in the awful gloom 
 They ve followed their hopes to a sunless tomb, 
 There in the desolate dust to lay 
 The dear, dead dreams of their yesterday." 
 
 These lidless, lifeless saurian stares 
 That meet your gaze on the thoroughfares, 
 That chill your soul in the milling mart, 
 That numb your brain and freeze your heart; 
 Do they bespeak the souls within 
 Sodden souls of soil and sin? 
 
 Ah, no, these children look blase 
 Cause Theda Bara looks that way; 
 And life evokes a weary smile 
 Because, just now, it is the style; 
 They all mean well, the little dears 
 But some one ought to pull their ears. 
 
 [28] 
 
SHOWING UP THE CARTOONERS 
 
 I have seen a wistful victim 
 
 Gaily belted on the attic 
 For a minor indiscretion 
 
 Or a sentiment erratic; 
 I have seen him castigated 
 
 With a dornick on the bean, 
 With a mission-freighted missile 
 
 Shunted swiftly o er the scene; 
 I have watched the pert pulsations 
 
 Of a vibratory bludgeon 
 On the flat cephalic onion 
 
 Of a turbulent curmudgeon, 
 But he never did his exit, 
 
 Oh, he never did, I swear! 
 As the cute cartooners draw him: 
 
 With his feet up in the air. 
 
 I have seen a fellow-mortal 
 
 Do a brodie in the drink, 
 Take a header in the dampness, 
 
 Try a Kellerman and sink, 
 Yea, go down as would a biscuit 
 
 Manufactured by a bride, 
 Coming back to see the surface 
 
 With some bubbles on the side; 
 I have seen a fellow-mortal 
 
 Go beneath the lapping wave 
 To what fancy fiction writers 
 
 Deftly call a "watery grave," 
 I have seen him drown completely 
 
 Rotten luck! but here s the rub: 
 When he struggled to the surface 
 
 He did NOT remark "Glub glub." 
 
 [29] 
 
THE WIFIE S NOSE FOR NEWS 
 
 If the Joneses get a baby or the Johnsons get the pip, 
 
 Or the Smithses have another family fight; 
 If the girl across the alley gets a husband or the grippe, 
 
 I will have the why and what of it tonight; 
 For my wife knows when a tenant and the landlord 
 have a jam, 
 
 And why the man next door is death on booze, 
 She is jerry to the gossip, she is hep to all what am, 
 
 For wifie has a nimble nose for news; 
 So she has, 
 
 A nimble, neat and nifty nose for news! 
 
 Does Tom Jollicks come home pickled she can tell 
 
 you when and why, 
 
 And the price they soaked Miss Smithers for that lid, 
 Where did Sarah Whatyoucallit get that shanty on her 
 
 eye? 
 
 Did her husband give her that? You bet he did. 
 Where does Mrs. Beecher go (shrug! shrug!) and spend 
 
 her afternoons? 
 
 Why do Arnolds have to live on oyster stews? 
 Who had tea with Mrs. Fletcher and departed with 
 
 her spoons? 
 Ask my wife, she s got the nimble nose for news! 
 
 Yea, bo! 
 A most uncanny, nifty nose for news. 
 
 O, she knows that Mrs. Julip has to rouge and wears 
 
 a wig, 
 
 And Miss Rooney s shape was purchased in a store, 
 That a young and handsome doctor calls a lot on Mrs. 
 
 Figg 
 
 (And she so healthy, too) but say no more! 
 And the Gores are sharps at poker, well, in fact they 
 play to eat, 
 
 30] 
 
And the clubs have sued that stuck-up Smythe for 
 
 dues, 
 
 O, the information bureau in my home is hard to beat, 
 And harder still my wifie s nose for news! 
 
 Some nose! 
 Her nimble, neat and nifty nose for news! 
 
 So I warn you all, my neighbors, I am wise to all you 
 
 do, 
 
 I am jerry to the whyness of your which, 
 It is vain to flaunt pretensions, for I know your sala 
 ries, too, 
 
 And I know if you are poor or if you re rich; 
 I know all your secret sorrows, all your loves and all 
 
 your hates, 
 
 All your problems, your successes, and your blues; 
 What your wife has told my wifie to me nightly she 
 
 relates, 
 And she s got a keen, uncanny nose for news; 
 
 So she has! 
 A nimble, neat and nifty nose for news! 
 
 [31! 
 
BITTER LINES TO A NON-SKID 
 AUTO SALESMAN 
 
 You hound of hell, you re on my trail, 
 
 You hunt me night and day, 
 You dog my weary footsteps 
 
 In a pestilential way. 
 You haunt my busy office,* 
 
 You hang around my home, 
 I cannot shake you off my track, 
 
 No matter where I roam. 
 
 I met you at the auto show 
 
 And foolishly I cried, 
 Your car looks pretty good to me," 
 
 And then I crawled inside. 
 A wolfish gleam lit up your eyes, 
 
 Your fangs were crool and white, 
 How happy I d be now if I 
 
 Had wrung your neck that night. 
 
 For day and night from that day on 
 
 You call me on the phone, 
 Sometimes you hunt with other ghouls 
 
 But mostly hunt alone. 
 You send me letters, postal cards, 
 
 And cables and dispatches, 
 In avalanches, groups and scads, 
 
 In bunches, bales and batches. 
 
 You non-skid auto salesman, you, 
 
 You grim rapacious spectre, 
 Oh take your beak from out my heart, 
 
 Your form from out my sector. 
 Disperse, begone and leave me be, 
 
 My life no longer mar; 
 I do not want your gol darn bus, 
 
 I do not want your car. 
 
 *Adv. 
 
 [32] 
 
REMARKS ON BABY SHOES 
 
 Every morning or at least most every morning 
 
 As I beat it to the cold and clanging mart 
 To annex the beer and skittles that comprise my daily 
 
 vittles 
 
 Comes a warning from the wifie of my heart; 
 Comes a warning and a tocsin and a message 
 
 With a frequency that nullifies the news; 
 "There was something for today Let me see Oh, 
 
 by the way 
 
 The baby needs another pair of shoes." 
 "Shoes?" says I 
 "Shoes?" says she, 
 "The baby needs another pair of shoes." 
 
 Now, the petals of the poppy bloom are fleeting 
 
 And the beaded bubbles vanish on the brim, 
 And my weekly compensation knows a rapid dessication 
 
 Quite inimical to vigor, verve and vim; 
 There s a transitory value to the plaudit, 
 
 And ephemeral the honor that ensues, 
 But the absolute quintessence of the perfect evanescence 
 
 Are those frail and fragile things called baby shoes. 
 Ain t it the truth? 
 
 Those pale and puerile, weak, ethereal shoes. 
 
 Oh, the shoes I blindly buy for sturdy leather 
 
 They are fashioned from the wings of butterflies, 
 And are merely held together by some forecasts on the 
 weather 
 
 And some female no s and other kinds of lies; 
 And they vanish like the eggs of Easter Sunday, 
 
 And they disappear in bevies, squads and slews, 
 Yes sir, tempus sure can fugit I will grant you, 
 
 But it hasn t got a thing on baby shoes. 
 Alas, no, 
 
 It hasn t got a thing on baby shoes. 
 
 [331 
 
A MODERN ROMANCE 
 
 (I ll say it is) 
 
 The sun was setting in the West, 
 A quaint old custom it has got, 
 
 Belasco batting at his best 
 
 Could not have picked a better spot. 
 
 He drew her close and closer yet, 
 
 And closer still he drew and drew, 
 
 I love you Aniline," he cried, 
 
 Do you love me?" and she replied 
 "I ll say I do!" 
 
 And hours passed and in the sky 
 The argent moon on pallid feet 
 
 Stole softly through the clouds on high 
 
 (I think those first three lines are neat), 
 
 And then he said, "I love you, dear, 
 "My heart is beating fit to kill, 
 
 Oh tell me that you ll marry me," 
 
 And soft and low she said to he, 
 "I ll say I will." 
 
 And so to church! Oh, bellsome morn, 
 And Oh, the lovely glad array, 
 
 The victim pale and slightly worn, 
 
 The bride, of course, and why not? gay. 
 
 The preacher pried his book apart 
 And read a fatal line or two. 
 
 "Do you," says he, "take this here guy?" 
 
 And sweet and clear was her reply: 
 "I ll say I do!" 
 
 P. S. I ll say she did! 
 
 [341 
 
BjJ^K/^V^C 5 .^; 
 
 IWS^P^ 
 
 tf&# -iZfrji. fe^tL+3**5a& 
 
 
WHAT THE AVERAGE MAN THINKS 
 
 There are topics more impressive I will grant you, 
 
 There are subjects more instructive, too, I know; 
 Hypothetical abstractions which appeal to sundry fac 
 tions 
 
 On the wherewith and the why-such and the so; 
 Subject-matter categoric, pedagogic and historic, 
 
 Oh they clutter up the tomes upon the shelf; 
 All this wondrous information 
 I should use in conversation, 
 But- 
 
 I much prefer to talk about myself. 
 
 It is true that they are fighting in the trenches, 
 
 And a spot has been discovered on the sun, 
 That the trains are running largo since the recent 
 freight embargo 
 
 And the ban is on the bottle and the bun; 
 And I guess I should discuss them on the corners, 
 
 And gibber on the Ghibelline and Guelph, 
 I should give them cogitation 
 When I sling the conversation, 
 
 But, I much prefer to talk about myself. 
 
 I could talk of Homer, Euclid, Taine and Plato, 
 
 Aristotle, Sophocles and Eddie Poe, 
 I could make some fancy passes on osmosis of the 
 
 gasses 
 
 And a lot of other trinkets that I know; 
 I could talk of old Directum and the well-known Solar 
 
 Spectrum 
 
 And Hypotenuses, Chlorophyl and Pelf, 
 But there s nothing in creation 
 That so fills me with elation 
 
 As to sit around and talk about myself, 
 
 Just me! 
 For I dearly love to talk about myself. 
 
 [36! 
 
A PLEA FOR CHICAGO HUSBANDS 
 
 A husband of the local sort 
 
 Is not a handsome guy, 
 He is an injury and a tort 
 
 To almost any eye; 
 But though the poor benighted pup 
 
 Has neither charm nor vim, 
 He begs you not to shoot him up 
 
 For life is sweet to him. 
 
 The members grf the husband clan, 
 
 If taken by and large, 
 (And they are "taken" to the man) 
 
 Are graceful like a barge, 
 And haven t half the mental weight 
 
 That any wife has got, 
 But still they firmly deprecate 
 
 This thing of being shot. 
 
 This casual, offhand sorter way 
 
 Chicago wives have found 
 Of winding up a perfect day 
 
 By chasing hubby round 
 With forty-fours that tear a hole 
 
 At least two feet across, 
 And leave a husband, rest his soul! 
 
 A sad and total loss. 
 
 An open season once a year 
 
 When husbands could be shot, 
 As in the case of game and deer 
 
 Would be a happier lot, 
 But wives, we beg you hesitate, 
 
 Your daily shooting cease, 
 For we would like to molt and mate 
 
 And raise our young in peace. 
 
 [371 
 
GETTING EVEN 
 
 The Russians sent a caviar, the Germans sent a carp 
 
 And Italians the sinuous spaghet , 
 The English sent a sparrow 
 So our feelings he could harrow 
 
 And the Spaniards shipped a Spanish om-e-let; 
 And from France they eased a dressing 
 That s no apostolic blessing, 
 
 And the Greeks a Grecian bend that made us sick, 
 And from Scotland came the thistle, and a lotion for 
 
 our whistle, 
 
 So America retorted with the pic, moving pic, 
 And with Chaplin and his custard and his brick. 
 
 From the Mexican con carne with the accent on the con; 
 
 From the Cossack, curse his heart! we got the boot, 
 And the blouses from the Bulgar, 
 Chromotogenous and vulgar, 
 
 And the Hielands gave us golluf and the hoot; 
 From New-found-land came the codfish, 
 An extremely oily odd fish, 
 
 And Vienna furnished waltzes sad and sweet, 
 So for all this provocation, we, in grim retaliation, 
 
 Gave them Theda Bara s vamp and Charley s feet, 
 Rather neat! 
 
 Charley s custard pie, his padded brick and feet. 
 
 The Japanese assaulted us with Fujiyama prints, 
 
 And the Chinaman with suey a la chop, 
 And with holeses full of wheezes 
 Came the little Swisses Cheeses, 
 
 While the Hessians furnished flies for every crop; 
 Hung ry gave us of her goulash 
 Which is nourishing but foulash, 
 
 While old Ireland gave the shamrock and the stick! 
 So in sweet reciprocation, we arose, a mighty nation, 
 
 And repaid the bunch with Chaplin s padded brick, 
 Padded brick, 
 
 Yes, with Charley s custard pie and padded brick. 
 
 [38] 
 
THE HIGH COST OF LICKER 
 
 It used to be that one could get a mellow point of view 
 From beaker, cask, or bottle for a dollar, say, or two; 
 That one could purchase comfort and nepenthe by the 
 
 quart, 
 
 And the bill would not resemble a statistical report; 
 One didn t have to float a loan or sacrifice the crop 
 To get that swell reaction where you want to kiss a cop; 
 The weekly snub would buy enough to clutter up the 
 
 house, 
 But now it takes a millionaire to underwrite a souse. 
 
 The bibber of the bottle and the chauffer of the can 
 Was once a lowly member of a poor benighted clan, 
 And the clergy climbed his lattice with avidity and vim, 
 And they brayed him in the mortar of the potent 
 
 paradigm; 
 But the beacon on the beezer and the inspissated 
 
 speech, 
 Once the signs of destitution, now a different moral 
 
 teach 
 Now to see a lushy geezer makes my jealous pangs 
 
 arouse, 
 For today it takes a millionaire to underwrite a souse. 
 
 So, reader, should you notice as you walk along the 
 
 street 
 
 A man who seems to suffer with impediment of feet, 
 A man who stops before you with a light and airy 
 
 mien 
 
 And presents you to a tiger with a polka-dotted bean, 
 Do not eye him cold and distant, do not bash him on 
 
 the hat, 
 
 For today the malted mammal is the true aristocrat; 
 He may be the squiffy scion of an old and honored 
 
 house 
 Today it takes a millionaire to underwrite a souse. 
 
 [39] 
 
THE SONG OF THE MOVIE VAMP 
 
 I am the Moving Picture Vamp, insidious and tropical, 
 The Lorelei of celluloid, the lure kaleidoscopical, 
 Calorific and sinuous, voluptuous and canicular, 
 And when it comes to picking pals, I ain t a bit 
 particular. 
 
 At times I loll in languid ease, at others I am squirm- 
 
 ical, 
 
 My art is anatomical and also epidermical. 
 I vamp the silly single cuss, I also vamp the married 
 
 man, 
 The placid, the tempestuous, the satisfied and harried 
 
 man. 
 
 My eyes are long delirious eyes, liquescent eyes and 
 
 luminious, 
 And when you look in them you feel just like you re in 
 
 a stewminous. 
 I send a ripple down your keel, I agitate your livah, 
 
 sir 
 For I am most equivocal with the accent on the 
 
 quivah, sir 
 
 In short, I am the movie vamp, the sheezabeara 
 
 tropical, 
 
 The Scylla of the celluloid, the lorelei vox popical, 
 In turns I am demoniac, appealing, sly and clerical, 
 Ambiguous, sophisticated, wistful and hysterical 
 But mostly you will find that I m extremely tom-and- 
 
 jerrycal. 
 
 [40] 
 
LINES TO SUMMER FURS 
 
 Absquatulating all night and day 
 Along the, well, as you might say, way 
 Around their cervical vertebrae 
 
 I see the ladies 
 Wear furs, that look, I rise to say 
 
 Like Hades. 
 
 Why the gazelles should sport the coy 
 And epidermical pride and joy 
 Of our zoological hoi polloi 
 
 In such a silly 
 Inconsequential, insipid toy 
 
 Is one on Willie. 
 
 The fair, in a manner of speaking, sex 
 Would bounce on the unregenerate necks 
 Of the soulless, heartless masculine wrecks 
 
 Who said that furses 
 Impugn the existence of intellects 
 
 In she s and herses. 
 
 But the echinated, hispidulous stole 
 
 Of cuticle swiped from squirrel and mole, 
 
 Siberian hound and tabby (pole) 
 
 Is a good credential, 
 And proof sufficient that fashion s goal 
 
 Is non-essential. 
 
LINES OF ENTREATY TO FRIEND WIFE 
 
 Miss Venus (I have it direct from the bard) 
 
 Was bookoo bambina, considerable pard, 
 
 A luscious collection, a larrupin lass, 
 
 A lallapaloosa, an armful of class, 
 
 And crammed and suffused with perfections, I hear 
 
 A 36-28-42 dear. 
 
 But think you Miss Venus would shine in the mob 
 
 If poets had seen her eat corn on the cob? 
 
 Young Dido, I m told, was a coruscant coot, 
 A cunning chiquita, a darb, and a beaut, 
 The poets were loud in their praises of she, 
 Especially Virgil, Oh, rabid was he, 
 But granting her speed and no cylinders missin , 
 And grant her deserving a stop, look and listen, 
 Still Dido, the pippin, would look like a slob 
 If she were observed eating corn on the cob. 
 
 And Helen of Troy had speed, curves, and control, 
 Full many a geezer she knocked for a goal, 
 But she wasn t hep to the succulent maize, 
 Which fact, I contend, vastly bettered her ways; 
 For who could attribute charm, beauty, or grace 
 To a girl one has seen eating corn with her face? 
 So wife of my buzzum, pay heed to this blob 
 And don t, I implore you, eat corn on the cob. 
 
 [42] 
 
A SLAM ON SLAMS 
 
 When weaving ruminative rimes 
 
 To soothe the drowsy Sunday ear, 
 Tis quite convenient at times 
 
 To have a tangible idear 
 To hold a figment, say of thought, 
 
 A sop of sense, a feeble fact 
 On which a stanza may be wrought 
 
 And rows of running words be racked. 
 
 As I remarked, exuding verse 
 
 Of scintillating smack and snap 
 In fabrication ain t so worse 
 
 When there s a core of sense to wrap, 
 Or flock of rare afflatus swish 
 
 From out the azure, so to speak, 
 And lure poetical ambish 
 
 To zam the zither on the beak. 
 
 As hinted in the lines above, 
 
 The larrup of the lyric lay 
 Is consomme for any cove 
 
 With something on his mind to say; 
 But when his gears are full of grime, 
 
 And when he feels his engine miss, 
 He merely grabs some words that rime 
 
 And rattles off a verse like this. 
 
 [43] 
 
NEVER ARGUE WITH A WOMAN 
 
 I remember when my father spoke these wondrous 
 
 words to me: 
 Never argue with a woman; it will be the death of 
 
 thee; 
 They are full of conversation, they are cluttered up 
 
 with speech, 
 And their talk is as the beating of the breakers on 
 
 the beach. 
 Socrates, the wisest human, though he tried it all 
 
 his life, 
 Never won a single verdict when he argued with his 
 
 wife." 
 But I answered: "Dad, you re flooey, you are vacant 
 
 in the pan. 
 
 Women cannot reason clearly so they can t out- 
 argue man." 
 
 O, I really thought they couldn t, 
 I was pretty sure they couldn t; 
 In fact, I knew they couldn t 
 But they can! 
 
 Yes, the female of the species is more deadly with 
 
 the chin, 
 And the way they sling the chatter is a grievous, 
 
 mortal sin. 
 
 They will talk on any subject on the slightest prov 
 ocation 
 And when differed with attack you with extravagant 
 
 elation; 
 If you re wrong they ll quickly right you, if you re 
 
 right you must be wrong, 
 Therefore, don t be slow to say so, say it quick and 
 
 make it strong, 
 For they ll argue, yawp, and chatter, till you re 
 
 dizzy, dazed and ill, 
 
 [441 
 
And you d barter your salvation for a cure to keep 
 em still. 
 
 O, I used to think they wouldn t, 
 I was pretty sure they wouldn t, 
 In fact, I knew they wouldn t, 
 But they will! 
 
 Never argue with a woman," I recall those words so 
 
 well. 
 They will talk you to a frazzle, they will talk you to 
 
 a jell. 
 
 Though their logic may be looney and their syllo 
 gisms punk, 
 And their premises be rotten, their conclusions full 
 
 of bunk, 
 And your dope authoritative and of stuff they never 
 
 heard, 
 They will quickly prove you re crazy and your line 
 
 of talk absurd; 
 And they ll dearly love to do it, love to talk you up 
 
 a flue, 
 Talk and talk and talk and chatter till your mind 
 
 is full of goo. 
 
 I used to think they didn t, 
 I was pretty sure they didn t, 
 In fact, I knew they didn t, 
 But they do! 
 
 [45] 
 
THE CRIME WAVE 
 
 I know we have policemen here, 
 
 In this, our lovely town, 
 Because I see them frequently 
 
 Meandering aroun , 
 And now and then, when I have time 
 
 To read the thrilling news, 
 I see where they have just unearthed 
 
 A brand new batch of clues. 
 
 A bank was robbed the other day, 
 
 I mean another one, 
 And all the bandits got away, 
 
 With all the checks and mon. 
 But our police were on the job, 
 
 (They never nap nor snooze) 
 And in a week or two they had 
 
 A lot of lovely clues. 
 
 Most every night a citizen, 
 
 Returning from his job, 
 Is overtaken by a crook 
 
 And hammered on the nob. 
 But who could seriously regret 
 
 The valuables they lose, 
 When well they know that in return 
 
 They ll get a lot of clues? 
 
 Some people sneeringly deride 
 
 The system here in play 
 Of letting all the thieving thugs 
 
 Go thugging on their way. 
 They say that our policemen shirk, 
 
 But those are not my views, 
 I know the cops are on the job 
 
 Just look at all the clues. 
 
 [46] 
 
MY WIFE S BROTHER RAYMOND 
 
 Perhaps you imagined Napoleon was class, 
 And Alex the Great might get in on a pass, 
 And Little George Wash 1 was a lala, and so 
 Were Caesar and Lincoln and Newton and Poe, 
 If you did, just forget it they re all on the shelf; 
 They don t class with Raymond, 
 
 My wife s brother Raymond, 
 He s got them all faded she says so herself. 
 
 I harbored delusions that Shakespeare could write, 
 That Euclid could figure and Hector could fight, 
 That Bach could compose and that Chopin could play, 
 And Angelo sculpture and paint any day; 
 But I was mistaken, I freely confess: 
 They don t class with Raymond, 
 
 My wife s brother Raymond, 
 He does all of those things only better, my yes! 
 
 One day I took wifie to hear Elman play, 
 "Reminds me of Raymond," she said right away, 
 And when Paderewski had finished a valse, 
 She said "Just like Raymond, but HE don t play false." 
 I asked "Don t you think John McCormack can sing?" 
 She chortled "Like Raymond? 
 
 Oh, no, not like Raymond, 
 He ll do, but my brother s the regular thing." 
 
 Attila, Ossian, Elijah and Saul, 
 
 Copernicus, Newton and Peter and Paul, 
 
 Elias, Vespasian, Brian Boru, 
 
 And Lydia Pinkham and Henry Ford, too, 
 
 You all did your best, but the best that you did 
 
 Would never feaze Raymond, 
 
 My wife s brother Raymond, 
 He d do it while resting, the marvelous kid. 
 
 [481 
 
My wants they are few and they re small in the pod, 
 
 I long not for acres, not even a clod, 
 
 I yearn not for riches, nor hanker for fame, 
 
 A pot now and then is enough in the game, 
 
 I ve just one ambition: some day may my wife 
 
 Compare me with Raymond, 
 
 Say "You re just like Raymond!" 
 Then I ll die content I ll have made good in life. 
 
 f49l 
 
THE BRILLIANT ICEMAN 
 
 I used to think my iceman was 
 
 A regular Philistine, 
 That vegetable ivory 
 
 Composed his oblate bean, 
 That he was sorter balmy, too, 
 
 And wormy in the nut, 
 A cuckoo in the coco . . . yes, 
 
 I used to think this, but . . . 
 
 I know I was in error then 
 
 When foresaid thoughts I thunk, 
 When neath that rough exterior 
 
 I saw but human junk, 
 When I mistook his purest gold 
 
 For FeS2 dross, 
 My apprehension was at fault 
 
 He s quite another hoss. 
 
 My iceman has an intellect 
 
 Of most stupendous size, 
 A comprehension, keen, alert, 
 
 A vision, broad and wise; 
 And from his pupils shining forth 
 
 I see a soul that s free, 
 A soul of pulchritude and worth 
 
 And rare sagacity. 
 
 Behind his broad and ample brow 
 
 There sits a noble nut 
 That rules with perspicacity 
 
 His cunning occiput; 
 How do I know that he s so keen, 
 
 Whom once I thought so light? 
 Well, yesterday I heard him say 
 
 He likes the stuff I write. 
 
 [50] 
 
LINES TO THOSE QUEER AND CURIOUS COOTS 
 WHO ROAM THE STREETS IN BATHING SUITS 
 
 I do not know why you should stalk 
 Along the boulevard and walk 
 Arrayed in suits that unawares 
 Reveal the trend of your affairs 
 I do not know why this should be, 
 It surely ain t no treat to me. 
 
 The bathing suits in which you dress 
 
 Are nothing much and mostly less, 
 
 And as you saunter to and fro 
 
 A lot of family traits they show 
 
 To unappreciative eyes 
 
 Who view them with a mild surprise. 
 
 Perhaps you have the inward wish 
 
 Your anatomic exhibish , 
 
 Your epidermical display 
 
 Will sorter steal my sense away 
 
 And make my heart go pluck-a-pluck; 
 
 If such you wish, you re out of luck. 
 
 Your dripping passage down the street 
 
 Does not excite to fever heat, 
 
 Your coy and cute cutaneous splurge 
 
 Impels in me no naughty urge, 
 
 The moist contagion of your charms 
 
 Would lure no boys from off the farms. 
 
 You corpulent and sylph-like coots 
 Who run the streets in bathing suits, 
 Your rutilant al fresco coives 
 Are anaesthetic to my noives, 
 My brow is cool and dry my palm, 
 I view you with exceeding calm. 
 Why do you roam so far and free 
 You ain t no treat, that I can see. 
 
 [51] 
 
LINES TO J. P. JUNIOR 
 
 My little son, 
 
 Your sentence on this earth has just begun, 
 
 You have a long and toilsome race to run, 
 
 And it s but fair to tell you here and now 
 
 This ain t the best of worlds, no way, nohow; 
 
 Because you have it pretty soft today 
 
 You think, perhaps, twill always be that way, 
 
 And every one that you will ever know 
 
 Will be as good to you as Doctor Stowe, 
 
 But listen, bo, it isn t so. 
 
 The world ain t built on no such gorgeous plan; 
 
 You ll have to be a self-assertive man, 
 
 You bet, 
 
 And fight likehel for everything you get, 
 
 And light all spraddled out in every fray, 
 
 For life down here is not a holiday, 
 
 And he who totes the bacon to his den 
 
 Is he who has it on his fellow men. 
 
 My little son, 
 
 If you would cop the daily bread and bun 
 
 Don t figure on a soft and soothing time, 
 
 There s no such thing, believe this simple rime. 
 
 You ll find existence is a kind of bacon-biz, 
 
 With streaks of lean and fat 
 
 And this and that, 
 
 Like gloom and gladness, salve and sop, and sting 
 
 And everything, 
 
 And people lurking on the thoroughfare 
 
 To take you in and also unaware 
 
 And bounce a brick where you divide your hair, 
 
 And friends you ll find 
 
 Of every kind, 
 
 The false and true, 
 
 And of the former lots, 
 
 The latter few. 
 
 [52] 
 
And of your friends you ll find before you re done, 
 Your first will be your best and truest one, 
 And that friend is your mother, little son. 
 
 My little son, 
 
 The goal is far from easily won, 
 
 The road is long and hard that stretches there, 
 
 The race not to the swift but to the fair; 
 
 So play the game and play it on the square. 
 
 Then, even if the twilight of your day 
 
 Should find you with the goal still far away, 
 
 You need not care, 
 
 For better than the goal ignobly won 
 
 Is the race that s lost but still was fairly run. 
 
 [53] 
 
A LIU OL PORTERHOUSE STEAK 
 
 O, the Romans of old, they were strong for the eats, 
 
 And they dined upon squab from Algiers; 
 And they reveled in rivers of humming bird livers 
 
 And swordfishes fricasseed ears. 
 Each p. m. at 2 they d have nightingale stew 
 
 And a butterfly bake by the lake, 
 But sad was the lot of these guys they knew not of 
 
 The HI* oF porterhouse steak, Yes, yes, 
 
 Of the lil oF porterhouse steak. 
 
 The nosebags Olympic of asphodel fields 
 
 Held ambrosia and nectar divine, 
 A heavenly hash with a Jovian dash, 
 
 But I d scoff at such fodder for mine! 
 No Paphian pabulum, sir, could suffice 
 
 To satiate, surfeit, or slake 
 The keen appetite of the fortunate wight 
 
 Who has tasted the porterhouse steak, Aye! Aye! 
 
 The lir ol porterhouse steak. 
 
 A HI* oF porterhouse steak, if you please, 
 
 But thicker, a trifle, than that, 
 As tender as Flora and pink as Aurora, 
 
 With nuggets of unctuous fat; 
 Please broil it to cage all the juices within it 
 
 (Don t season while cooking!) now take 
 Your dreamy, delicious (but highly nutritious) 
 
 Your lir ol j porterhouse steak, Ye Gods! 
 
 Your lir oF porterhouse steak! 
 
 And that s why I zam on my zither today 
 
 No gross Sybaritical song, 
 For such, ain t it, Mawruss? I leave it to Horace 
 
 And Horace is there with it strong; 
 I long but to larrup my lyre to say 
 
 That Lucullian eats were a fake, 
 And I back by all odds, sir, that food of the gods, sir, 
 
 A HI ol porterhouse steak, Yes, yes, 
 
 A lil ol porterhouse steak! 
 
 [541 
 
A MAN S BEST PRESS AGENT HIS MOTHER 
 
 Oh, others may chortle and call me a failure, 
 
 And smile while I gather my Lilliput pile, 
 And sneer in derision: "That clutter of kale you re 
 
 Annexing is puny and not worth the while!" 
 And maybe they re right when they say I m no demon, 
 
 And that I will never be warmer than fair; 
 Perhaps they are right and perhaps they are dreamin , 
 
 But mother she knows I m a regular bear. 
 Ah, yes, sir, my mother just KNOWS I m a bear. 
 
 My mother is sure I m the High Cockalorum, 
 
 That I am the Fount and the Wellspring of Lore, 
 When she is around I am sure of a quorum, 
 
 An audience she whom I never can bore. 
 The others get tired of hearing my chatter, 
 
 They say all my goods were deceased on the shelf; 
 They call me a flivver but that doesn t matter, 
 
 My mother knows diff rent, she says so herself. 
 Oh, yes, sir, my mother will tell you herself! 
 
 My voice is not built to inspire emotion 
 
 Emotion, that is, of a lovelier kind; 
 When sicked upon others they leap in the ocean, 
 
 But mother just loves it she says "it s refined." 
 I m not a Beethoven, a Shakspeare, nor Chaucer, 
 
 Nor even a Whistler of that there s no doubt! 
 But did they do anything I couldn t? Naw, sir! 
 
 Just take it from mother, she ll tell you right out! 
 Just listen to mother, SHE LL tell you, old scout. 
 
 So what do I care if you say I m a filbert? 
 
 Oh, what do I care if you censure my stuff? 
 My mother has told me I m better than Gilbert, 
 
 She says in comparison Milton is guff. 
 I guess I should bibble, and stew, fret, and pine, sir, 
 
 Because for my talents the people don t care. 
 I may not be able to spear what is mine, sir, 
 
 But mother believes I m a regular bear; 
 Yes, mother, God bless her! just knows I m a bear. 
 
 [551 
 
GOD GIVE US MEN! 
 
 God give us men in times like these: 
 To keep our flag upon the seas, 
 To bring it through that warring hell 
 Of screaming steel and splintering shell 
 To Victory and to peace again. 
 God give us men, 
 
 God give us men. 
 
 God give us men in times like these: 
 No craven cowards on their knees 
 But fearless men, erect, four-square, 
 With hands to do and hearts to dare; 
 Come on! Your country cries again: 
 "God give us men, 
 
 God give us men!" 
 
 "God give us men in times like these," 
 
 The Stars and Stripes shout to the breeze; 
 "Fearless and valiant, terrible, just, 
 We ve never trailed in the bitter dust, 
 But give us men, or else we must" 
 Hark! Tis the Stars and Stripes again: 
 "God give us men, 
 
 God give us men!" 
 April 6, /p/7. 
 
 [56] 
 
THERE IS NO DEATH 
 
 There is no Death! The leaves that fade 
 
 And softly drift to silent doom 
 Are not to cold oblivion laid 
 
 In some forsaken, hopeless tomb 
 They are not dead; neath snow and rain 
 
 They live, and with the Spring s first breath 
 All glorified they ll come again 
 
 There is no Death! 
 
 There is no Death! The boys who pass 
 
 Like falling stars in glory s glow 
 Will live again when dewy grass 
 
 And poppies on those craters grow; 
 When all the world is fair and free 
 
 Because they gave their soul s own breath, 
 They ll live in millions yet to be 
 
 There is no Death! 
 
 157] 
 
A JEREMIAD ON LAUNDRIES 
 
 I had some passionate pink pajams, 
 
 Some chromotogenous hose, 
 Some tasty, trim, and tricksy ties, 
 
 And other superlative clothes; 
 But as I rode the kivered cars 
 
 O erdark my clotheses grewed; 
 I sent them to a laundaree 
 
 If I had only knewed! 
 For today I got my bundle 
 
 From that haunt of noisome ill, 
 And inclosed I found a bunch of rags, 
 
 A button and a bill! 
 
 Chorus 
 
 O, shun, my son, the laundaree, that evil omened boid, 
 For a laundry is a place you send your clothes to be 
 
 destroyed. 
 
 I had a snappy Palm Beach suit 
 
 It snugly draped my lattice, 
 It was a beatific beaut ; 
 
 But hold! Enough! Jam satis! 
 I loved that suit, I loved that suit, 
 
 I loved it like a son, 
 I ve followed the hearse of all my hopes, 
 
 I ve buried them one by one, 
 For to a demoniacal laundaree 
 
 I sent my little pard 
 Today I got my Palm Beach suit 
 
 Upon a postal card. 
 
 Chorus 
 O, grewsome, grim, and ghoulish is that evil omened 
 
 boid, 
 A laundaree that place you send your clothes to be 
 
 destroyed. 
 
 [58] 
 
Of noble shirts I had some three, 
 
 Each sillik, yes, and new, 
 Of lambent luminosity 
 
 And opalescent hue, 
 A polychromatic pooh pooree,* 
 
 A regular solar spectrum, 
 A gorgeous, colorful shivaree 
 
 Buh-lieve me, I select em! 
 But Oh, one shirt grew darkful, 
 
 And a laundry grabbed it, certes! 
 Today I got my buttons back 
 
 I don t know where the shirt is. 
 
 Chorus 
 For a laundry is a place you send your clothes to be 
 
 destroyed, 
 A place you send your clothes to be destroyed. 
 
 * Back o th Yards accent. 
 
 [59 
 
A WASHINGTON D. C., TRAGEDY 
 
 It was a private soldier, 
 
 In Washington, D. C., 
 Who, dying on the avenue, 
 
 This story told to me; 
 This sad and wistful story, 
 
 This narrative of gloom 
 That touched upon the circumstance 
 
 That led him to his doom. 
 
 "I am a simple private," 
 
 He murmured unto me, 
 "And I am the only private 
 
 In Washington, D. C. 
 The rest are first lieutenants 
 
 With spurs and riding boots 
 And all day long theyVe hounded me 
 To give them some salutes. 
 
 "I did the best I could, sir, 
 
 From early morn till night, 
 I worked my tried and trusty arm 
 
 For every "lieut." in sight. 
 But "Lieuts" came fast and faster 
 
 And more and more and more, 
 And nary another private came 
 
 To help me with my chore. 
 
 "And now, alas I m dying 
 
 I could not stand the pace 
 And I must die with one regret; 
 
 There s none to take my place . . ." 
 His voice grew faint and fainter 
 
 "O Gawd, my arm is sore, 
 Tell mother . . . Andrew done ... his ... bit 
 To help ... to win the . . . war." 
 
 [60 
 
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AN IMPORTANT EVENT 
 
 I was fathoms deep in cogent cogitation, 
 
 I had just put Old Afflatus on the mat, 
 And established a connection 
 With a potent retrospection 
 
 Appertaining to and touching this and that; 
 I was lost I say in lambent lucubration, 
 
 And my thinker (yes, it is) was going some, 
 When the wife rushed in a-crying: 
 Stop that foolish versifying, 
 
 Come and look. The baby s learned to suck her 
 thumb." 
 
 And the message she exuded it was truthful, 
 
 And the words were gems of rare veracitee, 
 For our airy little fairy 
 Had unhinged a maxillary 
 
 And inserted in the cunning cavitee, 
 Had inserted in the consequential chasm, 
 
 In the aperture resulting thusly from 
 Her precocious dilatation 
 Of her means of mastication, 
 
 Had inserted shall I say it? Yes! her thumb! 
 
 You may wonder that I gazed in admiration? 
 
 You may marvel that I stared with oh s and ah s, 
 With astonishment prodigious 
 As my cunning little squidjus 
 
 Placed her thumb within the province of her jaws? 
 But I tell you that my pride is most preposterous, 
 
 And my exhaltation simply strikes me dumb, 
 I just stand with glowing buzzum 
 For my darling fuzzum-wuzzum 
 
 Has discovered how to suck her little thumb, 
 By gum! 
 
 The little slickerine can suck her thumb! 
 
 [62] 
 
SOME MUSINGS ON NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 Birds 
 
 For birds I entertain a care, 
 I like the way they take the air, 
 Their singing soothes my inner ear, 
 And I am pleased when they appear 
 In crimson feathering and blue, 
 In short I think that birds will do; 
 But they eat worms, which proves, I m sure, 
 Their taste is far from epicure. 
 
 Squirrels 
 
 I quite approve of squirrels, I think, 
 Although I d much prefer them pink; 
 Their teeth are sharp, their fur are soft 
 And nimbly they can shin aloft; 
 But I can t understand why they 
 Should chew on hard-shelled nuts all day, 
 When they could find much softer eats, 
 Like peas, bananas, soup and beets. 
 
 Worms 
 
 I would not for a single term 
 Agree to underwrite the worm; 
 The way he rises after rains 
 Is proof to me he has no brains; 
 For he is stepped on in his flight 
 Which must be quite distressing, quite; 
 Another reason why I think 
 The garden worm s a silly gink, 
 His chassis is assembled wrong 
 And his wheelbase it is much too long. 
 
 People 
 
 People are nice, but then I fear 
 There are too many people here, 
 When one would watch a function gay, 
 They re always standing in your way; 
 And when in need of much repose 
 They park themselves upon your toes. 
 I think they re ordinary, too, 
 And that includes myself and you. 
 [63] 
 
THE HIGHER THE BROW THE LESS IT SWEATS 
 
 Sing of the Bunions of Toil, 
 
 Warble the Man with the Hoe, 
 Hokum s according to Hoyle, 
 
 But gimme the Man with the Dough! 
 Gimme the Guy with the Green, 
 
 Gimme the Jay with the Junk, 
 Gimme the Shekels Serene 
 
 This Bunions of Toil is the Bunk. 
 
 Hammer your lyre to bits, 
 
 Warble the Luke in the Loom, 
 Sing of the Corns on his Mitts, 
 
 But gimme the Mighty Mazum ! 
 Gimme the Goof with the Gold, 
 
 Gimme the Toff with the Tin. 
 Hoes may be noble to hold 
 
 But gimme a Five in the Fin. 
 
 Salt is the Sweat of the Serf, 
 
 Scant is the glory he gleans, 
 His toeses are out on the turf, 
 
 He battens his belly with beans. 
 Sing you the Man with the Hoe? 
 
 Sing him, you Sonuvagun! 
 But gimme the Man with the Dough, 
 
 Gimme the Guy with the Mon. 
 
 [64 
 
"NO, NO, DOWNTOWN, POP-EYE, 
 TAY HOME" 
 
 Each morn when I ve ruined some ham and some eggs 
 
 And stowed em all under my hatch, 
 And draped the remains of my coat round my legs 
 
 And crowned with a kelly my thatch, 
 I say to my daughter: "Now, Pop-eye must go, 
 
 Downtown to his work he must roam, 
 And make you some taters." But daughter cries, "No! 
 
 No, no, downtown, Pop-eye; tay home!" 
 
 You d wonder if you were to gaze from afar 
 
 And see what I drew for a face, 
 Why Dorothy Mary should think me a star 
 
 And cry when I m leaving the place. 
 "I ll say that he sorter oppresses the eyes," 
 H Would peregrinate through the dome, 
 "It ain t for his beauty that Dorothy cries: 
 
 " No, no downtown, Pop-eye; tay home. 
 
 It ain t for his beauty! How utterly utt, 
 
 Sagacious and keen and profound! 
 But what do I care if I look like a mutt, 
 
 As long as she likes me around? 
 So long as she ll have me and may that be long, 
 
 I know I won t hunger to roam, 
 For there s just a wee tear and a pang in her song: 
 
 "No, no, downtown, Pop-eye; tay home." 
 
 [65] 
 
WE MEET, BUT DO NOT SPEAK 
 
 We do not speak, the wife and I, 
 
 We meet, but do not speak; 
 Our one-time happy habitat 
 
 Is desolate and bleak. 
 A deep sepulchral silence reigns 
 
 Within our humble hut, 
 Where lightsome chatter fluttered once 
 
 There now is nary flut. 
 
 Perhaps you wonder what became 
 
 Of our esprit d corps, 
 And why vamoosed the dove of peace 
 
 From our domestic shore. 
 If so your wonder cease a while, 
 
 And read this deathless squeak, 
 And you will know then why we meet, 
 
 And pass but do not speak. 
 
 Upon a lot adjoining us, 
 
 A lot of luscious loam, 
 I planted onions, beets and things 
 
 To garnish up my home, 
 To load my table with its yield 
 
 Its succulent and bright 
 Convention of comestibles 
 
 Of esculent delight. 
 
 One fatal day wife volunteered 
 
 To help subdue the weeds, 
 And with a cruel, vicious hoe 
 
 She dug up all my seeds, 
 And cut down each potato stalk, 
 
 Each onion, corn and leek, 
 She thought them weeds, so now we meet 
 
 And pass but do not speak. 
 
 [66 
 
THE FLU 
 
 When your back is broke and your eyes are blurred. 
 And your shin-bones knock and your tongue is furred. 
 And your tonsils squeak and your hair gets dry, 
 And you re doggone sure that you re going to die, 
 But you re skeered you won t and afraid you will, 
 Just drag to bed and have your chill; 
 And pray the Lord to see you through 
 For you ve got the Flu, boy, 
 
 You ve got the Flu. 
 
 When your toes curl up and your belt goes flat, 
 And you re twice as mean as a Thomas cat, 
 And life is a long and dismal curse, 
 And your food all tastes like a hard-boiled hearse, 
 When your lattice aches and your head s a-buzz 
 And nothing is as it ever was, 
 Here are my sad regrets to you, 
 You ve got the Flu, boy, 
 
 You ve got the Flu. 
 
 What is it like, this Spanish Flu? 
 
 Ask me, brother, for I ve been through. 
 
 It is by Misery out of Despair, 
 
 It pulls your teeth and curls your hair, 
 
 It thins your blood and brays your bones 
 
 And fills your craw with moans and groans, 
 
 And sometimes, maybe, you get well 
 
 Some call it Flu I call it hell! 
 
 [67] 
 
AN IMAGIST WOULD CALL THIS "PALE 
 PURPLE QUESTION DESCENDING A STAIRCASE" 
 
 How puerile and futile, inept and inutile, 
 
 How profitless, empty and stale, 
 How bootless and vain and how drab and inane 
 
 Is our life in this vaporous vale; 
 We rise and we work and we eat and we drink, 
 
 And we sleep till it s time for our call, 
 And then once again we rise, work, eat and sleep 
 
 And what is the use of it all, 
 At all! 
 
 Oh, what is the use of it all! 
 
 Oh cosmic monotony, pallid and gray 
 
 You fill me with exquisite pain, 
 For always the nightime is followed by day 
 And Sunday by Monday and April by May, 
 
 And sunshine by tempest and rain, 
 And after the Winter come Spring time and Summer, 
 
 And after the Summer comes Fall, 
 And after the Fall come Winter and Spring, 
 The same old routine, deadly thing! 
 
 Oh, what is the use of it all, 
 At all! 
 
 Oh, what is the use of it all! 
 
 "No sub-solar novelty" Solomon said, 
 
 And Sol was precocity plus. 
 The newest inventions (oh blushes dark red!) 
 Were swiped from some nations unutterably dead 
 
 Who swiped them from others cuss! cuss! 
 So therefore why bustle, get het up and hustle 
 
 Tis useless, for Solomon said it; 
 There ain t a thing new that a live one can do 
 
 The dead ones have got all the credit. 
 And now leading Pegasus back to his stall 
 
 Oh, what is the use of it all, 
 Dog-gone ! 
 
 Oh, what is the use of it all. 
 
 [68] 
 
A LAMENTATION 
 
 I know now why you fletcherize your short and stubby 
 toes, 
 
 Why you prefer to slumber on your kneecaps and your 
 nose, 
 
 And why you find a pabulum surpassing in your thumb, 
 
 And why you always holler when your fodder orter 
 come, 
 
 I know the why and thusly and the whence of every 
 thing^ 
 
 Excepting this: I don t know why you like to hear me sing. 
 
 My voice is most peculiar because it runs a race 
 Between an ice cream tenor and a coco-cola bass, 
 And when I trot it forth in song the doors and win 
 dows slam, 
 And neighbors holler something I believe it s Yubie 
 
 Dam! 
 
 The city has requested me to fumigate the thing, 
 And yet (it s almost past belief!) you like to hear me sing! 
 
 With cacophonic clatter through the keys I let it flap, 
 It skids on ev ry turn and has a blowout ev ry lap, 
 It knocks in all the bearings and it rattles in the gears; 
 No wonder that the neighbors when they hear it burst 
 
 in tears. 
 I would not be surprised if they should shoot me on 
 
 the wing, 
 And yet, you little booberine, you like to hear me sing! 
 
 Oh yes, I hoped that you would learn to treat pianos 
 
 rough, 
 
 And bat at least 400 in that fa-so-lah-si stuff; 
 I prayed you d be a glutton for Beethoven and his crew, 
 But all my fondest fancies now have flickered up the flue; 
 I know you ll never have an ear for music s magic 
 
 swing 
 
 You ll never know what music is you like to hear 
 me sing! 
 
 [60] 
 
THOUGHTS ON A BATHING BEACH 
 
 I sit upon the shining sand, 
 
 Beside the sounding sea, 
 And sights I cannot understand 
 
 Come flitting o er the lea, 
 Ungainly sights which give me pain 
 
 In my anatomee. 
 
 Long, lean and lanky gnarled legs 
 With knots upon the knees, 
 
 And trunks like piccolos or kegs 
 Come wafting thru the breeze, 
 
 And arms like reeds and hands like hams 
 I gaze on all of these. 
 
 Yon woman in her bathing suit 
 
 Upon the shining sand, 
 When on the street I thought her cute, 
 
 And now upon the strand 
 Where are those lissome luscious curves? 
 
 I cannot understand. 
 
 And yonder man if man it is 
 
 I saw him yesterday, 
 And marveled at his beauteous phiz 
 
 And watched his shoulders sway 
 But now within that bathing suit 
 
 His shoulders where are they? 
 
 And so upon the shining sand, 
 
 Beside the brimming brine, 
 I sit and watch those ghastly sights 
 
 And painful thoughts are mine 
 I sit and wonder why it s called 
 
 "The human form divine." 
 

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THE CURE 
 
 For years he cursed the wicked rich in horrid, hectic 
 
 tones; 
 He cursed them hide and fur and teeth and feathers, 
 
 hair and bones; 
 He cursed them in the morning, and he cursed them in 
 
 the night; 
 He panned them auburn, blond, brunette, and yellow, 
 
 black and white. 
 He hated them and all they had with a hate beyond 
 
 compare 
 He hated them down to Hades and up the Golden 
 
 Stair; 
 But an uncle died and left this guy a bunch of yellow 
 
 ore, 
 And now you never hear him curse the wealthy any 
 
 more. 
 
 "The plutocrats," he used to say, "have ground us 
 
 down and out; 
 They scourge us to disease and death beneath the 
 
 bloody knout; 
 They take the bread from out our mouths, the rags 
 
 from off our backs, 
 And live the while in mansions grand while we exist in 
 
 shacks. 
 O, curse the rich and all they have and those that 
 
 gave them birth; 
 I wouldn t touch a cent of theirs for anything on 
 
 earth." 
 But an uncle died and left this guy a million bucks or 
 
 more, 
 And I have got it pretty straight it didn t make him 
 
 sore. 
 
 He d stand beside the avenoo, this democratic guy, 
 And shake his fists at limousines as they went crash 
 ing by; 
 
 [72] 
 
He d curse a pants that had a crease and shoes that 
 
 had a shine. 
 
 And rave at lobsters, caviar, and any kind of wine. 
 The cognoscenti he d condemn and hoi polloi he d 
 
 praise; 
 You have no faint conception of the H 1 he used to 
 
 raise. 
 But an uncle died and left him many flocks of golden 
 
 ore, 
 And, strange enough, he doesn t curse the wealthy any 
 
 more. 
 
 73 
 
GIRLISH NERVE 
 
 I sorter figgered you would be 
 
 Away above the crowd, 
 A child of rare supremacy 
 
 Of whom I could be proud. 
 
 A modest, timid little maid 
 
 I pictured you, alack! 
 But all my dreams are rent and frayed 
 
 You call your daddy: "Mac." 
 
 The only children I have got 
 
 And you so brash and bold, 
 To call me Mac my little tot 
 
 One year and two months old. 
 
 One year and two months old that s all 
 
 A lady you should be, 
 Instead of that you re full of gall 
 
 You holler "MAC!" at me. 
 
 You might have called me, daddy, see? 
 
 Or pa, or even pop, 
 But this here squawking "MAC!" at me 
 
 Has simply got to stop. 
 
 I74l 
 
THE PATIENT PROXY 
 
 When butchers send us tenderloin 
 
 That s anything but tender, 
 A hot sulphuric bawling out 
 
 The missus loves to render. 
 She shoots a sharp and searing speech 
 
 That scorches up the lea, 
 But the butchers never hear that speech, 
 
 She tells it all to me. 
 
 When grocers overcharge us, and 
 
 I ll say that s rather "offen" 
 My bosom pal consigns the bunch 
 
 Where even steel would soften. 
 She rips them up and down the keel 
 
 Oh, how they d learn to fear it 
 If they just heard the stuff I ve heard, 
 
 But then they never hear it. 
 
 Upon my poor, unwilling ears 
 
 She practices each sermon 
 For peddlers, maids and grocery boys 
 
 And other kinds of vermin. 
 Til tell them this, I ll tell them that" 
 
 Corrosive is her chatter, 
 But when s she d tried it out on me, 
 
 That always ends the matter. 
 
 (75l 
 
THE JANITOR S GOOD TO HIS FOLKS 
 
 Slip me an ear while I sing you the son of a 
 
 Gun in the cellar, the janitor bloke, 
 He who can give you more pain in the run of a 
 
 Season than vaudyville s deadliest joke. 
 Down in his catacombs, taking it easy, O! 
 His to decide if he soldiers or stokes, 
 True, you may freeze 
 While he sits at his ease 
 But isn t he good to his folks? 
 
 He is! 
 You bet he is good to his folks! 
 
 Oft in the night and it needn t be stilly, sir 
 
 You will awaken with ice in your ears, 
 Cold is your craw and your liver is chilly, sir, 
 
 But snug in his lair the janitor cheers. 
 Do you suspect that he does it a-purpose, O! 
 Do you suppose it is one of his jokes? 
 Letting you freeze 
 As a sort of a wheeze? 
 Sure! But he s good to his folks, 
 
 He is! 
 A regular bear with his folks! 
 
 You can just gamble your bottom simoleom 
 
 He and his brood aren t freezing at night; 
 His radiators don t flood the linoleum, 
 
 His gasometers don t clog, and read right; 
 His light connections are never burned out for him, 
 His garbage goes, and his laund(a)ry soaks 
 What? It ain t fair? 
 Gosh, what do you care 
 So long as he s good to his folks? 
 
 My! My! 
 And say! Ain t he good to his folks! 
 
 76] 
 
So that s why I sing you that lovely old son of a 
 
 Gun in the cellar, the janitor guy, 
 He who allots you more pain in the run of a 
 
 Year than most anything under the sky; 
 But if your flat is cold as a halibut, 
 
 If in your service he dallies and pokes. 
 Recover your cheer 
 By repeating this here: 
 Perhaps he is good to his folks. 
 
 Ah, yes! 
 A janitor s good to his folks! 
 
 [771 
 
HONEST CONFESSION IS GOOD 
 
 When I return late from the clamorous mart 
 
 Or a bumper in yonder cafe, 
 Do you hurry to greet me, O wife of my heart, 
 
 In a blithe douglasfairbanksy way? 
 Do you greet me, my own, with a sibilant kiss, 
 
 Do you smile, as is often your wont? 
 The truth, I must say, is the converse of this 
 
 I m constrained to reply that you don t. 
 
 It is true you re a portion of demitasse size, 
 
 But your wrath is terrific plus ten, 
 And when I offend you, you swiftly uprise 
 
 And gosh, but I m timorous then! 
 And that s why I quail when I m out after dark, 
 
 And I sidestep the wassail and spree, 
 For you re not a bit bigger than Marguerite Clark, 
 
 But you look like Jack Dempsey to me. 
 
 I m afraid of your glower, and I m skeered of your 
 frown 
 
 And your smile that is cutting as steel; 
 When you silently give me that cold up-and-down 
 
 It congeals the whole length of my keel. 
 And when each bonny eye shows a deadly disdain, 
 
 I just audibly quiv at the knee 
 It is true you re no bigger than Johnny Kilbane, 
 
 But you look like Jack Dempsey to me. 
 
 78] 
 
THE BUNS OF NOTRE DAME 
 
 I sing the buns of Notre Dame, 
 
 I warb their beamish beauty, 
 I chaunt their charms with heart aflame, 
 
 For chaunting is my duty, 
 I strum for all her shining sons, 
 
 Departed and aborning, 
 Those beamish, beatific buns, 
 
 We got on Sunday morning! 
 
 The crust an aromatic brown, 
 
 As fragrant as the Indus, 
 You should have seen us shuffle down 
 
 As much as they would sind us. 
 O, coruscant, collegiate grub, 
 
 O pabulum adorning 
 The platter of the veriest dub 
 
 On sunny Sunday morning! 
 
 O, Notre Dame, the years have fled, 
 
 Since your professors caught me, 
 And I remember but your bread, 
 
 And not the stuff you taught me. 
 Your isms, ologies and ics, 
 
 Were nothing to be scorning, 
 But what are ologies to Micks 
 
 With buns on Sunday morning? 
 
 Tis true, the ancient slickers had 
 
 A lot of fancy chefers, 
 Ambrosia was a snappy fad 
 
 Among Olympic zephyrs, 
 But for their fodder and their fun 
 
 Believe a gypsy s warning 
 I would not trade the palest bun 
 
 We got on Sunday morning! 
 
 [79 1 
 
A COST OF LIVING EPIC 
 
 John R. Croesus owned a clutter of mazuma (slang for 
 dough), 
 
 And he led the league in grabbing off the dollars long ago, 
 
 And he speared the shining shekels with an ambidex 
 trous fin, 
 
 And he hunted down the festive tintinabulating tin; 
 
 But his pile is pale and puerile when compared with 
 that of mine, 
 
 He is just a pica piker and a tin horn and a shine, 
 
 I am richer now than Crcesus ever dreamed that he 
 could be 
 
 I ve a genuine potato and it all belongs to me! 
 
 Alexander Henry Midas was the transmutative guy, 
 With alchemic mitts he juggled ev ry thing that met 
 
 his eye, 
 
 With goboons of gelt to gratify his smallest wish or whim, 
 You might say, as in a whimsy, life was touch and 
 
 go (Id) for him. 
 
 For indeed he had a multitude of cunning, curly kale, 
 And he had it by the bushel and the barrel and the bale, 
 But I hold I have him faded, more plethoric is my roll 
 I am now the sole possessor of a genuine piece of coal! 
 
 Sing me not the wealth of Inca, El Dorado, or Cathay, 
 Fair Golconda, General Motors, U. S. Steel, or Wheat 
 
 of May, 
 
 Tell me not of John D., Morgan, Alcibiades, or Schwab, 
 Captain Kidd, the Guggenheimers mention not one 
 
 single slob, 
 For these puny penny snatchers could not match my 
 
 hoard immense, 
 They resemble phony testoons and a testoon s thirty 
 
 cents! 
 
 I am richer than a magnate, private banker, or a yegg, 
 For I own controlling interest in an onion and an egg. 
 
 [80] 
 
THE BURN YE CREE 
 
 (As we say at the club) 
 
 The council committee on health has directed the 
 health commissioner to draw up an ordinance to 
 enforce sanitary conditions in "hot dog" stands, pop 
 corn, ice cream, and peanut dispensaries. News item. 
 
 I eat prophylactic pretzels 
 
 On an antiseptic dish, 
 Served with pure selective shad roe 
 
 From a choice eugenic fish; 
 I ve deodorized my onions, 
 
 And I ve filtered all my cheese 
 But a sanitary hot dog? 
 
 Don t insist upon it, please! 
 
 All my prunes are disinfected, 
 
 I have mundified my clams, 
 Ventilated all my liver, 
 
 And decrassified my hams; 
 All my bacon is abstergent, 
 
 Carbolated to the bone; 
 But I ask you like a brother 
 
 Leave my dogs of peace alone! 
 
 Oh, I m death on protozoa; 
 
 As for germses, sir, I hate em; 
 I ain t clubby with bacilli, 
 
 And I love to castigate em. 
 I m the katabolic kiddo 
 
 At this pathogenic game; 
 But I love my dogs al fresco, 
 
 Alee samee, alee same! 
 
 81] 
 
TO A TWENTY MONTH OLD TRAMP 
 
 Our home is not a marble hall 
 
 With tesselated floors and things, 
 No Gobelin doodads on the wall, 
 
 No porticos and massive wings; 
 No butlers buttle in the flies, 
 
 No footmen foot around the lea, 
 But just the same it satisfies 
 
 Your ma and me. 
 
 We do not scorn our humble home, 
 
 Although it ain t no mansion gay; 
 We do not gallivant and roam 
 
 Around the streets the livelong day. 
 We love to sit and rest our feets 
 
 Beneath our almost-copper lamp, 
 But you would rather bum the streets, 
 
 You little tramp. 
 
 All day you gad around the yard 
 
 And waste your time in useless play, 
 While me and ma are working hard 
 
 To get your fodder day by day; 
 But when the shades of evening drop, 
 
 Do you come home from out the din? 
 You don t! It almost takes a cop 
 
 To bring you in. 
 
 Our home, I know, is not a spot 
 
 Of monumental size and style, 
 But still it has that vacant lot 
 
 And dusty alley beat a mile. 
 But if you differ, little cuss, 
 
 Let s compromise the thing, i.e., 
 Come in and spend the nights with us, 
 
 Your ma and me. 
 
 [82 
 
LINES TO AN AMATEUR CORNETIST 
 
 CC I blow in it so sweet and it comes out so sour!" 
 
 Weber and Fields, 
 Across the vacant lot from me 
 A young man sits in ecstacy, 
 And on the evening air he flings 
 From his cornet a lot of things 
 That might be music, sweet and gay, 
 If only he would learn to play. 
 
 And yet he tries, I ll say for him, 
 He tries with vigor, verve, and vim; 
 Each dewy eve, each blushing morn 
 He tells his troubles to that horn, 
 Which sympathizes with his woe 
 And raises h 1, I d have you know. 
 
 But, reader, do not garner here 
 That I am crabbed, cross, and queer, 
 Disliking "Music, Heavenly Maid," 
 In blissful harmonies arrayed. 
 I could not love her as I do 
 If I could stand this other, too. 
 
 And yet the sad and sour cry 
 This horn outpours against the sky 
 Would not embitter me in full 
 If only it would cease to pull 
 The national air at night, when I 
 Have gone to bed in sleep to lie. 
 
 "O, say," he bugles, "can you see?" 
 At twelve o clock at night to me, 
 And here s the way the anthem goes 
 -0 k~ , r J- 
 
And here s the way my neighbor blows. 
 
 So I must stand most all the night 
 Before he finally gets it right. 
 
 For months and months I ve been the dupe 
 
 Of this outrageous cornu-coup, 
 
 And all the milk of human zest 
 
 Is clabbered in my aching breast. . . . 
 
 He s going to play a harp real soon 
 
 (And I bet he ll play it out of tune!) 
 
A CHICAGO NIGHT S ENTERTAINMENT 
 
 Once upon a midnight dreary, 
 (Gentle reader grow not leary, 
 This is not a blank and bleary 
 
 Paraphrase of Eddie Poe), 
 I was sunk in silent slumber 
 When across the lea did lumber 
 Forty-eight or some such number 
 
 Singing cats who row on row 
 Smote the welkin bookoo wallop 
 
 With their fa-so-la-si-do. 
 
 On the fence beside the alley, 
 Hopped a fair and feline Galli 
 With a Stracciari pal-y 
 
 And they did a vocal chore. 
 And while serenading for us 
 With a cacophonic chorus 
 Tuneful Tommies treaded o er us 
 
 Looking for some lost Lenore. 
 Who, to judge their ullulations, 
 
 They d discover nevermore. 
 
 "Cats," I cried, "Your lyrics grieve me, 
 Pray disperse, begone, and leave me 
 Get thee hence before I heave me 
 
 Missiles till you re sad and sore. 
 You ve no idee what my rent is, 
 Nor have I of what your bent is, 
 Only you re non compos mentis 
 
 And I hate you to the core; 
 Get thee back to South Chicago 
 
 And return to us no more." 
 
 But they gave no sign nor token 
 That my sentiments outspoken 
 
 86] 
 
Through their rhythmic souls were soakin* 
 
 While their songs they did outpour. 
 Higher soared their chant and higher, 
 Till I rose in vengeful ire 
 And I smote one gay Mariah 
 
 Full upon her esprit d corps. 
 And they stood not on the order 
 
 Of their going from my door 
 And I ve seen them . . . 
 
 Nevermore ! 
 
 [87! 
 
WARNING! 
 
 Of cunning tricks you have a store, 
 
 But one of them, I m finding now, 
 I do not like no way, no more, 
 No how. 
 
 No sweeter baby in the block, 
 
 Than you, you darling little gem, 
 But why arise at four o clock 
 A. M.? 
 
 At first I thought it cute and pert 
 
 For you to stand up in your crib, 
 And sing your matins, little squirt, 
 Ad lib. 
 
 But it has ceased to be a joke, 
 
 Some how I cannot smile again, 
 You give me a distinctly loc- 
 Al pain. 
 
 Where do you get this fatal flaw? 
 
 This early rising heresy? 
 You didn t get it from your Maw, 
 Nor me! 
 
 Some deadly atavistic shock 
 
 Has warped your being, root and stem, 
 Else why awake at four o clock 
 A. M.? 
 
 No grouch am I, nor yet a crank, 
 
 But you have put me on the blink 
 You cut it out or Paw will spank 
 You pink. 
 
 (88] 
 
A DIPLOMATIC MOVE 
 
 My Missus is a lovesome thing 
 
 When she is feeling gentle, 
 Her smile is as the smile of Spring 
 
 Upon the lowly lentil; 
 She sympathizes with my woes, 
 
 She soothes me when I m puny, 
 And bears with me although she knows 
 
 I m cracked and also loony. 
 
 My Missus is a lovesome thing, 
 
 My verse she DOES admire, 
 She always lets me have my fling 
 
 (God help him, he s a liar!) 
 My guide, philosopher and friend 
 
 In every quirk and quand ry, 
 And never does she fail to send 
 
 My collars to the laundry. 
 
 My Missus is lovesome thing, 
 
 She comforts and caresses 
 And only in the Fall and Spring 
 
 She buys expensive dresses; 
 A gracious wife, a regular pal 
 
 And cute as Mary Minter .... 
 (I hope this verse will square me up 
 
 For banqueting all winter.) 
 
WISTFUL WORDS TO DOROTHY 
 
 Yes, I have a small request or two to ask you 
 
 That touch upon and appertain as well 
 To curious demonstrations of affectionate relations 
 
 With your brother who has come with us to dwell, 
 And, knowing how ungraciously you listen, 
 
 I m just a trifle diffident and shy, 
 But in spite of apprehension, 
 This request I m bound to mention: 
 
 Please do not poke your brother in the eye, 
 In the eye, 
 
 Please do not poke your brother in the eye. 
 
 It is quite inconsequential I will grant you, 
 
 A trivial little episode, I know, 
 And scarcely worth the bother 
 Of this pert parental pother 
 
 But I m bound to set the limits you can go, 
 Or otherwise you might by easy stages 
 
 Advance to letting heavy missiles fly, 
 And swat your little brother 
 On some vital spot or other, 
 
 So I ask you, do not poke him in the eye, 
 In the eye, 
 
 Please do not poke your brother in the eye. 
 
 By the by, it just occurs to me to mention: 
 
 The picture which you make en-route for bed, 
 Quite a bit of beauty loses 
 When you stop to bounce your shoeses 
 
 On the apex of your sleeping brother s head. 
 It is not the lack of sisterly affection 
 
 As afforded by this index I decry, 
 And for more important reasons 
 Than the chance of fatal lesions, 
 
 Here s the rub: the cost of shoes is mighty high, 
 Mighty high! 
 
 P. S. Don t poke your brother in the eye. 
 
 [90] 
 
WORDS AND MUSIC BY A MUSKRAT 
 
 I do not feel, nor ever felt 
 
 That this my own, my native pelt, 
 
 My coy, cutaneous carapace 
 
 Is cluttered up with charm and grace; 
 
 In fact, I think the following thunk: 
 
 The doggone thing looks pretty punk. 
 
 Some higher fate, I m told, decides 
 
 What animules shall wear in hides; 
 
 The silver fox has flossy fur 
 
 That sells at many thousand per; 
 
 The sable gets a toney skin 
 
 That takes some husband for his tin. 
 
 The mole, the dark and devious mole, 
 Has got a hide that costs a roll, 
 But what have I? A measly pelt 
 That isn t worth an ounce of gelt. 
 I would not wear it, were it not 
 The only hide what I have got. 
 
 And yet I m told that women wear 
 My hide for coats most everywhere, 
 My awful looking epiderm 
 Is quite the thing this winter term 
 I wish you d tell me why they do, 
 I cannot dope it out, can you? 
 
 91] 
 
THANKSGIVING DINNER SONG WITH AN EYE 
 FOR THE SOARING PRICES OF FOOD 
 
 I ll have microscopic turkey, 
 
 And a Lilliputian pie, 
 Served with evanescent taters 
 
 That will flee the naked eye; 
 Imperceptible my olives, 
 
 Inappreciable my ices, 
 And they ll carve my pigmy pudding 
 
 In emaciated slices. 
 
 I ll have legendary dressings 
 
 On imaginary dishes; 
 Chimerical my oranges, 
 
 Intangible my fishes, 
 The cakes all purely abstract, 
 
 And nebulous the nuts, 
 With kernels of "howevers" 
 
 And "perhapses" "ifs" and "buts." 
 
 Amorphous ducks and pickles 
 
 And phantastic sweet potatoes, 
 Hypothetical confections, 
 
 Suppositional tomatoes; 
 But I ll enjoy my dinner, 
 
 Though it s largely postulation, 
 For, Lord be praised! He s given me 
 
 A good imagination. 
 
 [92 J 
 
"POO POO" SAYS YOU 
 
 I held high hopes that you would be 
 
 A credit to your ma and me, 
 
 That some fine day we d point with pride 
 
 To you, a lady, dignified, 
 
 And sweet and kind and all that stuff, 
 
 Instead, you re getting pretty tough. 
 
 For when we give you sage advice 
 
 And try to teach you to be nice, 
 
 You scorn our counsel, kind and true; 
 
 Says you, 
 "Poo poo!" 
 
 We try to teach you not to smear 
 The morning egg in either ear, 
 We say, "Now baby, don t do that, 
 It ain t de riguer in a flat." 
 But you ignore our counsel fair 
 And rub the remnants in your hair, 
 And all the satisfaction we 
 Can get from you, that I can see 
 Is just two words and sassy too; 
 "Poo poo" 
 Says you. 
 
 Too poo" to ma; "poo poo" to me, 
 No matter what our words may be, 
 No matter how sagacious, fine 
 Your mother s counsel . . . yes, or mine; 
 We ve tried to fetch you up correct, 
 But good results I can t detect, 
 And now, when we would mend your ways, 
 You treat us like a pair of jays, 
 To all commands and counsel, too, 
 "Poo poo" 
 Says you. 
 
 [93] 
 
MY CONGRESSMAN 
 
 I know I have a Congressman 
 
 In Washington, D. C. 
 For now and then he comes around 
 
 To get a vote from me; 
 He proudly shakes me by the hand 
 
 And asks about my needs, 
 And when he goes to Washington 
 
 He sends me garden seeds. 
 
 Whenever there s a bill for which 
 
 I d like to have him vote, 
 I trust in him and tell him so 
 
 By telegram or note; 
 And he gets every one, I know, 
 
 And every one he reads, 
 For always when the Spring has came, 
 
 He sends me garden seeds. 
 
 The other day I wrote to him 
 
 "We put our faith in you 
 To make the League of Nations safe 
 
 If Wilson puts it through." 
 His answer came right back to me: 
 
 "Appreciate your needs . . . 
 Am sending in tomorrow s mail 
 Some lovely garden seeds." 
 
 I m glad I have a Congressman 
 
 In Washington, D. C., 
 His legislative efforts there 
 
 Mean Oh so much to me! 
 He is my representative, 
 
 For me his bosom bleeds, 
 And always when the Spring has came 
 
 He sends me garden seeds, 
 Radishes and lettuces, 
 Tomatoeses, cucumberses, 
 
 Such lovely garden seeds! 
 
 [94] 
 
iSreg^jaSssSSiBi 
 
CONSERVING MOTHERS 
 
 I often hear some long haired guy, 
 In wild and frenzied anguish cry, 
 "Conserve the food, or else we ll die, 
 
 Some way or other; 
 Come make each mother strive and try 
 
 It s up to mother. 
 
 "If there is any work to do, 
 An egg to fry, a lamb to stew, 
 A bun to bake, a drink to brew, 
 
 Let mother brew it; 
 And if the wash is needing blue 
 
 Let mother blue it. 
 
 "Let mother rassle with the tub, 
 Let mother wash and rinse and rub, 
 Let mother sweep and scald and scrub 
 
 With wild elation; 
 Let mother do it that s the nub! 
 
 Twill save the nation!" 
 
 Oh, every day I hear em rave: 
 "The vista s dark, the outlook grave, 
 Expense we must cut and shave 
 
 To save the day, sir: 
 Let mother skimp, conserve and save 
 In every way, sir." 
 
 But I protest against this crew. 
 Why leave it all for her to do? 
 Conserving is the job for you 
 
 And me and others, 
 I m going to start conserving, too 
 
 Conserving mothers. 
 
 96] 
 
LINES BY A HORSE ON A BITTER COLD DAY 
 
 Beside me to the curb you re rolled, 
 And warm fur robes around you cast, 
 
 While I, uncovered, shake with cold 
 In blinding snow and chilling blast; 
 
 But I should be resigned, of course; 
 
 You are a flivver I m just a horse. 
 
 And it is right that robes of fur 
 
 Be wrapped around your fragile form, 
 
 For injury you might incur 
 
 If left uncovered to the storm 
 
 While I will be immune, of course, 
 
 I m not a car I m just a horse. 
 
 And standing naked all day long, 
 
 In wintry winds that cut like steel, 
 
 Is good for horses, who are strong 
 But I confess, some grief I feel 
 
 That I was assembled by the Lord: 
 
 I wish it had been Henry Ford. 
 
 [971 
 
THE SWEET DRY AND DRY 
 
 They tell me this here prohibish 
 Is good for fowl and flesh and fish, 
 That countless blessings ooze and flow 
 From flirting with the H 2 O, 
 And highballs made of rain and dew 
 Are very good for me and you. . . . 
 Well, mebbe so, 
 I dunno. 
 
 They say it s wrong to oil our gears 
 With ales and lickers, wines and beers, 
 That in the subtle Scotch and Rye 
 A host of tribulations lie 
 And all the world will better be 
 For sipping sody, pop and tea ... 
 Well, mebbe so, 
 I dunno. 
 
 The grape-juice babies tell us birds, 
 With many hand-embroidered words, 
 That we must drink instead of beers 
 This stuff that s put around the piers 
 They call it water, now, I think, 
 But is the darn stuff fit to drink? 
 Well . . . mebbe so, 
 I dunno. 
 
 What will the seltzercooties do 
 When they ve eliminated brew? 
 Why smokes and songs will follow rum, 
 Then candy, cheese and chewing gum, 
 They ll make the world so kind and sweet, 
 That life will be a wondrous treat. 
 Well, mebbe so, 
 I dunno. 
 
 [98] 
 
WIM, WIGOR AND WICTORY WERSE 
 
 "You cannot keep a good man down," 
 
 Remarked some noble mutt, 
 Malicious dornicks tossed at him 
 
 May crenulate his nut, 
 Outrageous slings and arrows trun 
 
 By fortune ill may pot em, 
 But you cannot keep the good men down, 
 
 You can t keep cream on the bottom. 
 
 The deftly wielded double-cross 
 
 May catch you on the hip 
 And toss you on your vertebrae, 
 
 But don t desert the ship; 
 The anvil crew may lay for you 
 
 But never mind, dod rot em! 
 The big league man can t lose his nan, 
 
 Cream won t stay on the bottom. 
 
 "You cannot keep a good man down," 
 
 As Jonah told the Whale, 
 Within his Webster s unabridged 
 
 There s no such word as fail; 
 Such men come smiling from the floor 
 
 Where uppercuts have sot em, 
 As I, perhaps, remarked before 
 
 You can t keep cream on the bottom. 
 
 99J 
 
THERE AIN T NO CURE FOR GOLF 
 
 (Written after reading a news story in which a doctor 
 advocated golf as a cure for the inmates of insane 
 asylums.) 
 
 Oh the freaky, foolish filbert can t be bettered 
 By swatting pesky pellets round a lot; 
 
 There s a cure for any coco, 
 
 That is flooey, cracked or loco, 
 But a cure for guys who golluf there is not, 
 
 There is not! 
 A cure for guys who golluf there is not. 
 
 Merry mediocos meticulously messing 
 Around the haunts of cuckoo conks have got 
 
 A squad of pills and bitters 
 
 That will cure the goofy critters 
 But a cure for guys who golluf they have not, 
 
 They have not! 
 A cure for guys who golluf there is not. 
 
 Oh, the onion that is batting in the minors, 
 The medulla oblongata gone to pot, 
 
 May be traced to indigestion 
 
 And be cured beyond a question 
 But a cure for guys who golluf there is not 
 
 Not! Not! 
 A cure for guys who golluf there is not. 
 
 There s nepenthe for the bean that waxes balmy, 
 For the coco that is cuckoo they have got. 
 
 Simple, bolus and elixir, 
 
 That are guaranteed to fix er, 
 But a golluf panacea there is not, 
 
 There is not! 
 Oh a golluf panacea there is not. 
 
 [100] 
 
So I ask you like a brother, Mr. Doctor, 
 
 Don t let the filberts mashie, putt or swat, 
 There are salves enough b golly 
 For the skwerl who s off his trolley, 
 
 But a cure for guys who golluf there is not, 
 Alas! no! 
 
 A cure for guys who golluf there is not. 
 
 1 ioi i 
 
THE MUSKRATEER 
 
 As round the loop I daily snoop 
 
 I see a curious sort of goop, 
 
 All toggled out and walking in 
 
 Some fair-haired muskrat s favorite skin, 
 
 All wrapped in it from knee to ear 
 
 She walks, this curious Muskrateer. 
 
 And oh, it dessicates my mirth 
 To see how things are run on earth, 
 How little muskrats, dipped in dew, 
 Must give their hides to cover you, 
 The only hides they ever had 
 Just thinking on it makes me sad. 
 
 And yet when gazing here and there 
 A Muskrateer that s passing fair 
 Anoints my orb with winsome wile 
 And I am forced to muse the while 
 And say, "They killed you, muskrat, eh? 
 But gosh, you re still in luck, I ll say!" 
 
 1 102 j 
 
THE LITTLE QUAKER MAID REMARKS: - 
 
 It s wrong for men to watch me, still, 
 
 I like it. 
 They follow me against my will, 
 
 I like it. 
 
 They say such pretty things to me, 
 I know it s wrong as wrong can be, 
 I should not listen, but you see 
 
 I like it. 
 
 Sometimes to hold my hand they try, 
 
 I like it. 
 I do not understand just why 
 
 I like it. 
 
 They say that I am pretty, too, 
 I know I should not think that s true, 
 But what s a little girl to do? 
 
 I like it. 
 
 They call me "Little Quaker Maid," 
 
 I like it. 
 They softly say, "Art thou afraid?" 
 
 I like it. 
 
 They whisper sweetly in my ear 
 A lot of things I should not hear, 
 I m a naughty little girl, Oh, dear, 
 
 I like it. 
 
LINES TO A SAXAPHONE 
 
 You blear, barbaric beast, 
 
 I ve often heard you moan, 
 And passionately pant and sigh, 
 
 And gargle, grunt and groan, 
 I ve heard you stammer, heard you sneeze, 
 
 I ve listened to your neigh, 
 I ve heard you cough and snort and wheeze, 
 
 But I ve never heard you play. 
 
 I ve heard you crow all night, 
 
 And gurgle, spit and squeak, 
 I ve heard you nicker, heard you bark 
 
 And squall and scream and shriek; 
 I ve heard you hiccough, heard you howl, 
 
 And listened to your bay, 
 I ve heard you grumble, heard you growl, 
 
 But I ve never heard you play. 
 
 I ve heard your gutteral gamut 
 
 With the accent on the gutter, 
 I ve speared your suspirations 
 
 And I hate the noise you utter; 
 I have heard you bleat and blather, 
 
 I have heard you bawl and bray, 
 Heard you worked up to a lather 
 
 But I ve never heard you play. 
 
 [104 
 
I DO NOT CARE 
 
 I do not care how grand the stones 
 They rear upon my weary bones, 
 How costly be the wreathes they lay 
 Above my poor, unworthy clay, 
 Nor what they say about me there, 
 I do not care. 
 
 I do not care how sad the hymn 
 That fills the solemn aisle and dim, 
 How lofty and impressive be 
 The sounding service meant for me, 
 How long and fervent be the prayer; 
 I do not care. 
 
 Just this is all I ask the day 
 I take the silent road and gray; 
 That on my simple stone they hew: 
 Some little children loved him, too" , 
 What else they write about me there 
 I do not care. 
 
 [105] 
 
LINES TO A CAFETERIA OR GLOM-SHOP 
 
 (After Byron) 
 
 The Aisles of Grease! The Aisles of Grease! 
 
 Where feeders trip it to the trough, 
 And grab their chance to glom a piece 
 
 Of fodder for the mid-day scoff, 
 (And scoff, I d have you savvy, is 
 
 The scientific term for chow) 
 O, Aisles of Grease, you do some biz; 
 
 Kid Byron ought to see you now. 
 
 At noon we hook our shining tray 
 
 And shake a light fantastic toe, 
 To give your ensilage a play, 
 
 To win, to place, likewise to show; 
 On either side the victuals lie: 
 
 We spear them with a practiced hand, 
 The shy, seductive Cheese on Rye, 
 
 The blushing Egg, the blithe Ham-And. 
 
 The Pot Roast with the Spuds en bloc, 
 
 The Oysters on the Demi-Hull, 
 The Porcine Wrist, the Kindred Hock, 
 
 The Caviar Emptor (get me, cull?) 
 The salad a la K of C. 
 
 (Potato salad?) Thatta boy! 
 The Movie (custard) Pie, ah! me! 
 
 The Aisles of Grease are full of joy. 
 
 The Aisles of Grease! The Aisles of Grease! 
 
 I ve walked among your trodden ways, 
 And found a gastronomic peace 
 
 That beggars pleonastic phrase; 
 Redundant rhymes and verbose verse 
 
 Your beamish beauties may not tell: 
 As Chaucer says, "You aint so worse," 
 
 As Swinburne says, "You sure are swell." 
 
 [106] 
 
A ORRIBLE YMN OF ATE 
 
 Of pernicious protoplasms 
 
 I have known some goophy runts 
 Who have druv me into spasms 
 
 With their irritating stunts; 
 And of pestilential persons 
 
 And exasperating eggs, 
 I have mingled with the worse uns 
 
 I have drained the bitter dregs. 
 
 There are people who say "lookit" 
 
 Whom I hate unto the core, 
 For the word I cannot brook it 
 
 I could glory in their gore; 
 There are people who say "listen" 
 
 Whom I d madly, gladly kill . . . 
 But the super-pest is this un 
 
 In my categoric bill. 
 
 Ah, that pest of pests I meet him 
 
 Near my domiciliar hut, 
 And some morning I shall greet him 
 
 With a wallop on the nut, 
 I shall greet him and no other 
 
 With a sweet, resounding smack, 
 For he always calls me "Brother," 
 
 And he slaps me on the back. 
 
 [108] 
 
THE STRANGER 
 
 "Who s that stranger Mother, dear? 
 Look! he knows us, ain t he queer?" 
 
 "Hush my own, don t talk so wild; 
 He s your father, dearest child." 
 
 "He s my father? no such thing; 
 Father died away last Spring." 
 
 "Father didn t die, you dub, 
 Father joined a golfing club. 
 
 "But they closed the club, so he 
 Has no place to go, you see, 
 
 No place left for him to roam, 
 That is why he is coming home." 
 
 "Kiss him ... he won t bite you, child 
 All them golfing guys look wild." 
 
 [109] 
 
A PARENTAL ACCOMPLISHMENT 
 
 There s little in my head but pains, 
 
 No balance in my mental bank. 
 When someone handed out the brains 
 
 I drew a blank, 
 And yet my coco deftly toys 
 
 With stunts that certain genius takes; 
 I ve learned to understand the noise 
 
 My daughter makes. 
 
 When first she said "Gee gee boo woo" 
 
 It didn t mean a thing to me, 
 But now it s easy to construe 
 
 Her code, e.g. 
 "Gee gee" I ve learned is "Genevieve" 
 
 And "Boo woo" is a dog or cat 
 It takes a genius, I believe, 
 
 To figure that. 
 
 "Dow dow" is "down" and "gug" is "egg," 
 
 But "gug gug gug" in this refrain 
 Means "Give me breakfast, shake a leg, 
 
 Or I ll raise Cain." 
 "Ray ray" is Rachael, "hup" means "Come 
 
 And warm my milk and get my chair." 
 "Mac mac" is me, her mother s "Mum" 
 
 I ll say I m there! 
 
 For though I have a loft to let 
 
 Unfurnished, too, and rather dark, 
 At learning dorothyeese, you bet, 
 
 I m quite a shark; 
 My conk a solitude enjoys 
 
 But my one stunt a genius takes; 
 Translating all the kinds of noise 
 
 My daughter makes. 
 
 no ] 
 
MY BOYHOOD HERO 
 
 The hero of my boyhood days 
 
 (As near as I recall) 
 Was not Aladdin, Charles the Great, 
 
 Nor Brian Boru nor Paul, 
 Nor Socrates nor William Tell, 
 
 Nor Hannibal a-tall. 
 
 But he who claimed my fealty 
 
 And undivided cheers, 
 Whose form I see as I retrace 
 
 The trail of vanished years, 
 Was a boy I used to know in school, 
 
 Who d learned to wag his ears. 
 
 I never longed when I was young 
 
 To own a massive brain, 
 Nor lead a million men to war 
 
 Nor sail the Spanish main, 
 Nor roam the world from pole to pole 
 
 For honor or for gain. 
 
 No wistful wishes such as these 
 
 Excited me to tears, 
 One thing alone I yearned to find 
 
 Within my span of years 
 I only prayed that I some day 
 
 Would learn to move my ears. 
 
 P.S. I have. 
 
 [in] 
 
AINT IT THE TRUTH? 
 
 You have a nice assortment 
 
 Of stratagems profound 
 That you are always showing off 
 
 When no one is around. 
 But when a visitor arrives 
 
 To whom we ve sung your praise, 
 You are a small but perfect boob, 
 
 In fifty-seven ways. 
 
 When we re alone, you re awful smart 
 
 And stunts you have a score. 
 You know a coupla scales by heart 
 
 And sing them o er and o er; 
 You dance with airy, fairy grace 
 
 When we re alone, somehow, 
 But when a stranger s in the place, 
 
 You re graceful like a cow. 
 
 I tell my friends how cute you are, 
 
 Ingenious, clever, keen, 
 I praise you as a youthful star, 
 
 I boost your childish bean; 
 And when they come in gangs and herds 
 
 To see your wondrous tricks, 
 And hear your coruscating words, 
 
 Your brains are mostly nix. 
 
 It isn t right, it isn t fair, 
 
 It saps our vim and gimp, 
 We always bill you for a bear 
 
 And you turn out a simp; 
 And when my friends have slunk away 
 
 You re clever as of yore, 
 I tell them ... but they sadly say, 
 "We ve heard that stuff before." 
 
 [112] 
 
THE MAIDS 
 
 One by one they come and go, 
 Thin, sebaceous, nimble, slow, 
 Every hue and every style, 
 Come to visit us a while, 
 Come to bring us some new sorrow, 
 Here today and gone tomorrow. 
 When you think that one is true 
 She has beat it P D Q. 
 One by one they come and go, 
 Ain t it so? 
 
 One by one, an endless string, 
 Summer, autumn, winter, spring, 
 Minnie, Mable, Hilda, Sue, 
 Bridget, Carrie, Lily, Lou, 
 Now and then a prize appears 
 (Once in every hundred years). 
 But, alas, they never stay, 
 Neighbors lure them kind away, 
 Curse the fiends who stoop to such, 
 We have never done it (much), 
 But the good ones they are few, 
 Ain t it true? 
 
 One by one they come and flee, 
 What a curse it s got to be! 
 Every week another cove 
 Cranking up the kitchen stove; 
 Some just couldn t if they would, 
 Others wouldn t if they could 
 And the latest one to call 
 Always is the worst of all. 
 Will it never, never cease? 
 Will we ever get some peace? 
 Them are mighty harsh words, Nell, 
 But ain t it hell! 
 
 [113] 
 
A FELLER NEVER CARES ABOUT 
 THE OTHER FELLER S KID 
 
 When loving fathers rush to me with high lights in 
 
 their glims, 
 And prattle of their cunning hers and supercunning 
 
 hims, 
 
 How booful lil Squijums is a fool for orange juice, 
 How she can hold her head straight up and warble 
 
 like Cams , 
 How soon she learned her toeses are impervious to 
 
 munchin 
 When on her back how cutely she rolls over on her 
 
 luncheon 
 
 when a loony father comes and blabbers thus to me 
 
 1 counter with a lecture on my cunning progenee! 
 Why shouldn t I ignore the tricks his little shaver did? 
 A feller never cares about the other feller s kid! 
 
 When youthful fathers come to me with chests of 
 
 wondrous size, 
 And tell me what their offspring did I do not feign 
 
 surprise, 
 I do not arch my brows a bit, I do not catch my 
 
 breath, 
 The crudest thing my kiddy does has got em skinned 
 
 to death! 
 
 I do not even listen as they strum the golden strings 
 I may say "Yes?" or "Ain t that nice!" or other 
 
 friendly things; 
 
 A smile of sweet benevolence may decorate my dial, 
 But just the same my innards may be coming to a 
 
 "bile." 
 Why should I get excited over what his young un 
 
 did? 
 A feller never cares about the other feller s kid! 
 
 [114] 
 
You protoplasmic papas with the flabbergasting geeks, 
 
 I ve listened to your gibber now for many weary weeks. 
 
 You may have thought you stunned me with the 
 wonders you unveiled. 
 
 When I was merely hatching up a scheme to have you 
 jailed; 
 
 You may have thought I listened when you told me 
 of your brat 
 
 But I was merely hankering to swat you on the slat! 
 
 O save your blather while you may, it isn t any use 
 
 You bull for your bambino, but I pull for my pa 
 poose 
 
 You ll never get a rise from me on what your snoodles 
 did, 
 
 For a feller never cares about the other feller s kid! 
 
 Ins] 
 
WHEN BILLY SPEAKS 
 
 When Billy speaks, 
 
 Gesticulates and chins the bar and shrieks 
 
 At Beelzebub and all his impish geeks 
 
 He does it pretty swell, 
 
 He does 
 
 Becuz 
 
 His langwidge has a strong, sulphuric smell 
 
 He knows how to give the devils h 1 ! 
 
 (And, on the level, 
 
 What more appropriate gift to give a devil?) 
 
 When Billy speaks 
 
 He grabs our murky conscience by the breeks 
 
 And beats it to a palpitating pulp 
 
 While Satan runs around and hollers "Hulp!" 
 
 And all the minor devils, bales on bales, 
 
 All sit around a-holding of their tails, 
 
 Emitting curdling cries and woozy wails, 
 
 For Billy s put their business on the blink: 
 
 The sinful goop 
 
 Escapes the coop, 
 
 Escapes the toils of sin and all that stuff, 
 
 He hits the trail, the narrow trail and rough, 
 
 Forswears the ice cream den and Hinky Dink, 
 
 The cunning cognescenti and the classes, 
 
 The devilish demitasses, 
 
 And all the vicious lure of choc late sody 
 
 He passes up for Billy and for Rody. 
 
 When Billy speaks 
 
 To all us sinful geeks 
 
 We brighten up the corner where we are 
 
 In case it ain t the corner of a bar, 
 
 And start the Glidden tour to Heaven s gate 
 
 (Though some of us get started rather late ) 
 
 [116] 
 
At least we start the tour, 
 
 Of that we re pretty sure, 
 
 And though we may not reach the first control, 
 
 When Billy speaks we think we see the goal; 
 
 An easy goal to reach, 
 
 If we forswear the movie and the beach, 
 
 The gumdrop and the chocolate eclair, 
 
 Banana splits, the wicked, sinful snare, 
 
 And if we conscientiously forbear 
 
 To dance or sing or shout, except in prayer, 
 
 Salvation then will come to all us geeks; 
 
 At least that s what I glean 
 
 When Billy speaks. 
 
 [117 
 
THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH REVISED 
 
 Under the spreading chestnut tree 
 
 The village smith may stand 
 And hammer with his sledge till he 
 
 Has bunions on his hand, 
 And rivulets of perspirash 
 
 Meander o er his phiz. 
 I envy not his occupash 
 
 Nor hanker for his biz. 
 
 Week in, week out, from morn till night, 
 
 He sits beneath his tree 
 And flivvers pass him in their flight, 
 
 Sweet Land of Flivverty! 
 And he is full of meaty might, 
 
 Of wigor, werve, and wim, 
 But there is not a horse in sight 
 
 Except the horse on him. 
 
 He sees beside his chestnut tree 
 
 The flivvers fly pell-mell, 
 He wishes very earnestly 
 
 That they would go to grass, 
 For they have put him on the bum, 
 
 And likewise on the fritz, 
 And there he sits and sits and sits 
 
 And sits and sits and sits. 
 
 fii8] 
 

 * 
 
IN WHICH WE CONSIDER STRIKES 
 
 It was a pleasant evening, 
 
 Old Kaspar s work was done, 
 He was a walking delegate, 
 
 Likewise a sonuvagun. 
 It s pretty dull," he said to me; 
 I guess I ll call a strike," said he. 
 
 But strikes are awful things," said I, 
 
 "They cause a lot of woe. 
 When calling strikes no doubt that you 
 
 Have cause for doing so?" 
 To me he made this strange reply: 
 I do not need a reason why. 
 
 When times are good I call a strike 
 
 Because I think I should, 
 When times are bad I call a strike 
 
 Because they are not good." 
 Why do you call one now?" I cried. 
 There ain t no reason," he replied. 
 
 So from their prosperous pleasant jobs, 
 
 Old Kaspar called his men, 
 And after they d been out awhile 
 
 He sent them back again. 
 And the strikers muse and say, "Be gee, 
 Why is it called a Victory?" 
 
 1 120] 
 
LINES ON THE REAL CHRISTMAS SPIRIT 
 
 Within the last short week or so 
 
 The world has changed, I d have you know. 
 
 The maid is always here on time, 
 Her work is neat, her eats sublime; 
 
 The janitor is sweet and gay, 
 He even gave us heat today; 
 
 The milkman doesn t tramp the stairs, 
 Or holler like a flock of bears; 
 
 The grocery boy is too polite, 
 For him it doesn t seem just right; 
 
 The mailman on his morning rounds 
 Greets me and mine with pleasant sounds; 
 
 The elevator man is kind, 
 
 The office boy has learned to mind; 
 
 My yearly smile today I smiled; 
 I found my papers neatly filed; 
 
 Oh, why are they so pleasant, 
 
 And serve me with a thrill? 
 They think they ll get a present, 
 A lovely Christmas present 
 They re sure they ll get a present 
 
 And they will. 
 
 (Maybe.) 
 
 H2lJ 
 
A LETTER TO SANTA CLAUS 
 
 Dear Santa Claus: I take my pen 
 
 In hand tonight to write 
 A list of things you must not bring 
 
 My girl on Monday night; 
 A list of gifts that we will treat 
 
 As deadly contraband 
 Of which we strongly disapprove, 
 
 For which we will not stand. 
 
 You must not bring my girl a drum 
 
 For she makes noise enough, 
 Or dolls with sawdust giblets, for 
 
 She can t digest the stuff; 
 Don t bring her colored fairy books, 
 
 I ask you for her sake 
 She finished one a month ago 
 
 And got the tummy ache. 
 
 We draw the line on wooden blocks, 
 
 She drops them, as she goes, 
 Where I can step on them at night 
 
 And break my fragile toes, 
 Or else she lightly tosses them 
 
 Through sundry window-panes 
 Where they can fall on passersby 
 
 And spatter out their brains. 
 
 Don t bring her gooey candy sticks 
 
 She puts them in my hat 
 Or toy balloons she jumps on these, 
 
 Or ties them to the cat. 
 If you must bring her Christmas gifts 
 
 Then bring a nobler kind, 
 The sort of gift that stirs the soul 
 
 And elevates the mind. 
 
 [122] 
 
Bring classic statues, cunning brass, 
 
 And art profound and chaste; 
 Bring tomes of amaranthine verse 
 
 Let s cultivate her taste. 
 She s eighteen months of age today - 
 
 The age to start her right; 
 That s why I take my pen in hand 
 
 To write to you tonight. 
 
A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT 
 
 His ears were torn and tattered, 
 And furrows ridged his neck; 
 
 He looked just like the Hesperus, 
 Our most successful wreck, 
 
 Or like the little boy who paused 
 Upon the burning deck. 
 
 "What battle were you in," I cried, 
 "That you should look this way? 
 Were you in Rheims or Wipers 
 
 Upon some flaming day, 
 Or were you fighting on the Marne? 
 O, tell me, sir, I pray." 
 
 "You ve got me wrong," he whispered; 
 "I joined no fighting crew, 
 I never shelled a submarine 
 
 Upon the briny blue. 
 It must be quiet though, compared 
 To what I ve just been through." 
 
 Said I: "You have mislaid an ear 
 And dropped a nose somewhere, 
 
 And through your rents and apertures 
 The sun is shining fair 
 
 And all this happened over here, 
 And not, sir, over there?" 
 
 He bowed his poor dismantled head 
 
 And softly did he say: 
 "The ones who took me all apart 
 
 And done me up this way 
 Were forty thousand women, sir, 
 
 Who shopped on me today." 
 
 [124] 
 
INDEX 
 
 Page 
 
 A Chicago Night s Entertainment 86 
 A Christmas Thought 124 
 A Cost of Living Epic 80 
 A Diplomatic Move 89 
 A Feller Never Cares About the Other Fel 
 ler s Kid 114 
 Ain t It the Truth 112 
 A Jeremiad on Laundries 58 
 A Lamentation 69 
 A Letter to Santa Claus 122 
 A Lil OF Porterhouse Steak 54 
 A Man s Best Press Agent His Mother 55 
 A Modern Romance 34 
 An Imagist Would Call This "Pale Purple 
 
 Question Descending a Staircase" 68 
 
 An Important Event 62 
 
 A Orrible Ymn of Ate 108 
 
 A Parental Accomplishment no 
 
 A Plea for Chicago Husbands 37 
 
 A Slam on Slams 43 
 
 A Washington D. C. Tragedy 60 
 
 Bawp-Bawp-Bawp-Bawp-Pa 27 
 
 Beware of the Geezer With Something to Sell 16 
 
 Bitter Lines to a Non-Skid Auto Salesman 32 
 
 Conserving Mothers 96 
 
 Getting Even 38 
 
 Girlish Nerve 74 
 
 God Give Us Men 56 
 
 Gosh, How We Dread It 18 
 
 Honest Confession is Good 78 
 
 I Do Not Care 105 
 
 In Which We Consider Strikes 120 
 
 [125] 
 
INDEX Continued 
 
 Page 
 
 Lines by a Horse on a Bitter Cold Day 97 
 
 Lines of Entreaty to Friend Wife 42 
 
 Lines on the Real Christmas Spirit 121 
 
 Lines to a Cafeteria or Glom-Shop 106 
 
 Lines to a Movie Vampire 12 
 
 Lines to a Saxaphone 104 
 
 Lines to an Amateur Cornetist 84 
 
 Lines to an Old Schoolmate 19 
 
 Lines to J. P. Junior 52 
 
 Lines to Summer Furs 41 
 
 Lines to Those Queer and Curious Coots 51 
 
 My Boyhood Hero in 
 
 My Congressman 94 
 
 My Wife s Brother Raymond 48 
 
 Never Argue with a Woman 44 
 
 "No, No, Downtown, Pop-eye, Tay Home" 65 
 
 "Poo Poo" Says You 93 
 
 Preparedness Plus 25 
 
 Remarks on Baby Shoes 33 
 
 Showing Up the Cartooners 29 
 
 Some Musings on Natural History 63 
 Thanksgiving Dinner Song With an Eye for 
 
 the Soaring Price of Food 92 
 
 That s a Gift 13 
 
 The Brilliant Iceman 50 
 
 The Buns of Notre Dame 79 
 
 The Crime Wave 46 
 
 The Cure 72 
 
 The Durn Ye Cree (As We Say at the Club) 81 
 
 The Flu 67 
 
 The Girls of Today 28 
 
 The High Cost of Licker 39 
 
 The Higher the Brow the Less it Sweats 64 
 
 The Janitor s Good to His Folks 76 
 
 The Language of Childhood 24 
 
 [126] 
 
INDEX Continued 
 
 Page 
 
 The Little Quaker Maid Remarks 103 
 
 The Maids 113 
 
 The Muskrateer 102 
 
 The Patient Proxy 75 
 
 The Player Piano Upstairs 21 
 
 The Song of the Movie Vamp 40 
 
 The Stranger 109 
 
 The Sweet Dry and Dry 98 
 
 The Village Blacksmith Revised 118 
 
 The Wifie s Nose for News 30 
 
 There Ain t No Cure for Golf 100 
 
 There Is No Death 57 
 
 Thoughts on a Bathing Beach 70 
 
 To a Straw Caubeen 20 
 
 To a Twenty Month Old Tramp 82 
 
 To Let Tenant Will Show 22 
 
 Warning 88 
 
 We Meet, But Do Not Speak 66 
 
 Well, Mebbe So I Dunno 26 
 
 What the Average Man Thinks 36 
 
 When Billy Speaks 116 
 
 When the Missus Goes Away n 
 
 When Wifie Drives 14 
 
 Wim, Wigor and Wictory Werse 99 
 
 Wistful Words to Dorothy 90 
 
 Words and Music by a Muskrat 91 
 
 [127 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON T 
 
 STAMPED BELO 
 
 DA: 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 ,_. NOV 22 1933 
 
 Rt 
 
 
 Uni FEB 17 1934 
 
 
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 NC frl 
 
 
 Ui MAY 1 1*? 
 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRA RY