Comes morning, the laddie
    Is led to the pen;
    But for the prostitute
    His pals await then. 
    Ha-ha-ha! ...

[Footnote:  While there can be but little doubt that these four stanzas are an actual transcript from life, Heinrich Heine’s “Ein Weib” is such a striking parallel that it may be reproduced here as a matter of interest.  The translation is by Mr. Louis Untermeyer.—­Trans.

    A woman

    They loved each other beyond belief—­
    She was a strumpet, he was a thief;
    Whenever she thought of his tricks, thereafter
    She’d throw herself on the bed with laughter.

    The day was spent with a reckless zest;
    At night she lay upon his breast. 
    So when they took him, a while thereafter
    She watched at the window—­with laughter.

    He sent word pleading “Oh come to me,
    I need you, need you bitterly,
    Yes, here and in the hereafter.” 
    Her little head shook with laughter.

    At six in the morning they swung him high;
    At seven the turf on his grave was dry;
    At eight, however, she quaffed her
    Red wine and sang with laughter!]

And still further a convict song: 

    I’m a ruined laddie,
    Ruined for alway;
    While year after year
    The days go away.

And also: 

    Don’t you cry, my Mary,
    You’ll belong to me;
    When I’ve served the army
    I will marry thee.

But here suddenly, to the general amazement, the stout Kitty, usually taciturn, burst into laughter.  She was a native of Odessa.

“Let me sing one song, too.  It’s sung by thieves and badger queens in the drink shops on our Moldavanka and Peresip.”

And in a horrible bass, in a rusty and unyielding voice, she began to sing, making the most incongruous gestures, but, evidently, imitating some cabaret cantatrice of the third calibre that she had sometime seen: 

    “Ah, I’ll go to Dukovka,
    Sit down at the table,
    Now I throw my hat off,
    Toss it under table. 
    Then I athk my dearie,
    ‘What will you drink, sweet?’
    But all the answer that she makes: 
    ‘My head aches fit to split.’ 
    ’I ain’t a-athking you
    What your ache may be,
    But I am a-athking you
    What your drink may be: 
    Will it be beer, or for wine shall I call,
    Or for violet wine, or nothing else at all?’”

And all would have turned out well, if suddenly Little White Manka, in only her chemise and in white lace drawers, had not burst into the cabinet.  Some merchant, who the night before had arranged a paradisaical night, was carousing with her, and the ill-fated Benedictine, which always acted upon the girl with the rapidity of dynamite, had brought her into the usual quarrelsome condition.  She was no longer “Little Manka” and “Little White Manka,” but she was “Manka the Scandaliste.”  Having run into the cabinet, she suddenly, from unexpectedness, fell down on the floor, and, lying on her back, burst into such sincere laughter that all the rest burst out laughing as well.  Yes.  But this laughter was not prolonged ...  Manka suddenly sat up on the floor and began to shout: