Is it because my pants fit much too soon,
Or that my hand-me-down is out of style,
That thou dost turn me under when I spoon,
Nor hand me hothouse beauties with a smile? 
If that’s the case, next week I’ll scorch the line
Clad in a shell I’ll buy of Cohenstein.

III

As follows is the make-up I shall buy,
Next week, when from the boss I pull my pay:  —
A white and yellow zig-zag cutaway,
A sunset-colored vest and purple tie,
A shirt for vaudeville and something fly
In gunboat shoes and half-hose on the gay. 
I’ll get some green shoe-laces, by the way,
And a straw lid to set ’em stepping high.

Then shall I shine and be the great main squeeze,
The warm gazook, the only on the bunch,
The Oklahoma wonder, the whole cheese,
The baby with the Honolulu hunch —
That will bring Mame to time — I should say yes! 
Ain’t my dough good as Murphy’s?  Well, I guess!

IV

O fate, thou art a lobster, but not dead! 
Silently dost thou grab, e’en as the cop
Nabs the poor hobo, sneaking from a shop
With some rich geezer’s tile upon his head. 
By thy fake propositions are we led
To get quite chesty, when it’s buff! kerflop!! 
We take a tumble and the cog-wheels stop,
Leaving the patient seeing stars in bed.

So was I swatted, for I could not draw
My last week’s pay.  I got the dinky dink. 
No more I see the husk in dreams I saw,
And Mame is mine some more, I do not think. 
I know my rival, and it makes me sore —
’Tis Murphy, night clerk in McCann’s drug store.

V

Last night — ah, yesternight — I flagged my queen
Steering for Grunsky’s ice-cream joint full sail! 
I up and braced her, breezy as a gale,
And she was the all-rightest ever seen. 
Just then Brick Murphy butted in between,
Rushing my funny song-and-dance to jail,
My syncopated con-talk no avail,
For Murphy was the only nectarine.

This is a sample of the hand I get
When I am playing more than solitaire,
Showing how I become the slowest yet
When it’s a case of razors in the air,
And competition knocks me off creation
Like a gin-fountain smashed by Carrie Nation.

VI

See how that Murphy cake-walks in his pride,
That brick-topped Murphy, fourteen-dollar jay;
You’d think he’d leased the sidewalk by the way
He takes up half a yard on either side! 
I’m wise his diamond ring’s a cut-glass snide,
His overcoat is rented by the day,
But still no kick is coming yet from Mae
When Murphy cuts the cake so very wide.

Rubber, thou scab!  Don’t throw on so much spaniel! 
Say, are there any more at home like you? 
You’re not the only lion after Daniel,
You’re not the only oyster in the stew. 
Get next, you pawn-shop sport!  Come oft the fence
Before I make you look like thirty cents!