Sometimes the gorgeous pattern is a sportive pumpkin vine,
  At other times the lily and the ivy intertwine: 
  And then again the ground is white with purple polka dots
  Or else a dainty lavender with red congestive spots—­
  In short, there is no color, hue, or shade you could suggest
  That doesn’t in due time occur in a Will J. Davis vest.

  Now William is not handsome—­he’s told he’s just like me. 
  And in one respect I think he is, for he’s as good as good can be! 
  Yet, while I find my chances with the girls are precious slim,
  The women-folks go wildly galivanting after him: 
  And after serious study of the problem I have guessed
  That the secret of this frenzy is the Will J. Davis vest.

  I’ve stood in Colorado and looked on peaks of snow
  While prisoned torrents made their moan two thousand feet below: 
  The Simplon pass and prodigies Vesuvian have I done,
  And gazed in rock-bound Norway upon the midnight sun—­
  Yet at no time such wonderment, such transports filled my breast
  As when I fixed my orbs upon a Will J. Davis vest.

  All vainly have I hunted this worldly sphere around
  For a waistcoat like that waistcoat, but that waistcoat can’t be found! 
  The Frenchman shrugs his shoulders and the German answers “nein,”
  When I try the haberdasheries on the Seine and on the Rhine,
  And the truckling British tradesman having trotted out his best
  Is forced to own he can’t compete with the Will J. Davis vest.

  But better yet, Dear William, than this garb of which I sing
  Is a gift which God has given you, and that’s a priceless thing. 
  What stuff we mortals spin and weave, though pleasing to the eye,
  Doth presently corrupt, to be forgotten by and by. 
  One thing, and one alone, survives old time’s remorseless test—­
  The valor of a heart like that which beats beneath that vest!_

Playgoers of these by-gone days will remember the name of Kate Claxton with varying degrees of pleasure.  She was an actress of what was then known as the Union Square Theatre type—­a type that preceded the Augustin Daly school and was strong in emotional roles.  With the late Charles H. Thorne, Jr., at its head, it gave such plays as “The Banker’s Daughter,” “The Two Orphans,” “The Celebrated Case,” and “The Danicheffs,” their great popular vogue.  Miss Claxton was what is known as the leading juvenile lady in the Union Square Company, and her Louise, the blind sister, to Miss Sara Jewett’s Henrietta in “The Two Orphans,” won for her a national reputation.  She was endowed by nature with a superb shock of dark red hair, over which a Titian might have raved.  This was very effective when flowing loose about the bare shoulders of the blind orphan, but afterward, when Miss Claxton went starring over the country and had the misfortune to have several narrow escapes from fire, the newspaper wits of the day could not resist the inclination to ascribe a certain incendiarism to her hair, and also to her art.  And Field, who was on terms of personal friendship with Miss Claxton, led the cry with the following: