XVI

Oh, for a fist to push a fancy quill! 
A Lover’s Handy Letter Writer, too,
To help me polish off this billy doo
So it can jolly Mame and make a kill,
Coax her to think that I’m no gilded pill,
But rather the unadulterated goo. 
Below I give a sample of the brew
I’ve manufactured in my thinking mill: 

“Gum Drop:  — Your tanglefoot has got my game,
I’m stuck so tight you cannot shake your catch;
It’s cruelty to insects — honest, Mame, —
So won’t you join me in a tie-up match? 
If you’ll talk business I’m your lemon pie. 
Please answer and relieve

An Anxious Guy.”

XVII

Woman, you are indeed a false alarm;
You offer trips to heaven at tourist’s rates
And publish fairy tales about the dates
You’re going to keep (not meaning any harm),
Then get some poor old Rube fresh from the farm,
As graceful as a kangaroo on skates,
Trying to transfer at the Pearly Gates —
For instance, note this jolt that smashed the charm:  —

“P.S. — You are all right, but you won’t do. 
You may be up a hundred in the shade,
But there are cripples livelier than you,
And my man Murphy’s strictly union-made. 
You are a bargain, but it seems a shame
That you should drink so much. 
Yours truly,
Mame.”

XVIII

Last night I dreamed a passing dotty dream —
I thought the cards were coming all my way,
That I could shut and open things all day
While Mame and I were getting thick as cream,
And starred as an amalgamated team
In a cigar-box flat across the bay —
Just then the alarm clock blew to pieces.  Say,
Wouldn’t that jam you?  I should rather scream.

Sleep, like a bunco artist, rubbed it in,
Sold me his ten-cent oil stocks, though he knew
It was a Kosher trick to take the tin
When I was such an easy thing to do;
For any centenarian can see
To ring a bull’s-eye when he shoots at me.

XIX

A pardon if too much I chew the rag,
But say, it’s getting rubbed in good and deep,
And I have reached the limit where I weep
As easy as a sentimental jag. 
My soul is quite a worn and frazzled rag,
My life is damaged goods, my price is cheap,
And I am such a snap I dare not peep
Lest some should read the price-mark on my tag.

The more my sourballed murmur, since I’ve seen
A Sunday picnic car on Market Street,
Full of assorted sports, each with his queen —
And chewing pepsin on the forninst seat
Were Mame and Murphy, diked to suit the part,
And clinching fins in public, heart-to-heart.

XX

Forget it?  Well, just watch me try to shake
The memory of that four-bit Scheutzen Park,
Where Sunday picnics boil from dawn till dark
And you tie down the Flossie you can take,
If you don’t mind man-handling and can make
A prize rough house to jolly up the lark,
To show the ladies you’re the whole tan-bark,
And leave a blaze of fireworks in your wake.