“Ow!  My name it is ’orrible ’Enery ’Emms,
And I ’ails from a ’ell of a ’ole! 
The things I ‘ave thought an’ the deeds I ’ave did
Are remarkable lawless an’ better kep’ hid,
So if Morgan you think of, an’ Sharkey an’ Kidd,
Forget ’em!  To name such beginners as them’s
An insult, so shivver my soul!  Yow! 
In every port o’ the whole seven seas
I ’ave two or three wives on the rates,
For I’m free wi’ my fancy an’ fly wi’ my picks,
And I’ve promised ’em plenty, an’ given ’em nix,
But have left ev’ry one in a ’ell of a fix! 
’Ooever said Bluebeard was brother to me’s
Either jealous or misunderstates!

“Wow!  For awful atrocity, murder an’ theft,
For battery, arson and hate,
>From breakin’ the Sabbath to coveting cows,
An’ false affidavits an’ perjurin’ vows,
I’m adept at whatever the law disallows,
And the gallowsmen gape at the noose that I left,
For I flit while the bally fools wait!”

Fred kept us awake all right.  Like most of his original songs, that one had sixty or seventy verses.

Chapter Twelve “America’s way with a woman is beyond belief!”

CUI BONO?

Did caution keep the gates of Greece,
Ye saints of “safety first!”
Twixt Thessaly and Locris when
Leonidas’ thousand men
Died scornful of the proffered peace
Of Xerxes the accurst? 
Watch ye have kept, ward ye have kept,
But watch and ward were vain
If love and gratitude have slept
While ye stood guard for gain.

Or ye, who count the niggard cost
In time and coin and gear
Of succoring the under-dog,
How often have ye seen a hog,
Establishing his glutton boast,
Survive a famine year? 
Fast ye have kept, feast ye have made;
Vain were the deeds and doles
If it was fear that ye obeyed
To save your coward souls.

Ye banish beauty to the stews
For lack of eyes that see,
And stifle joy with deadly rote
As empty as the texts ye quote,
The while forgiveness ye refuse
Lest wrath dishonored be. 
Gray are your days, drab are your ways,
Strong are your fashioned bars,
But, ye who ask if service pays —
Who polishes the stars?

Spring in Armenia is almost as much like heaven as heaven itself could be, if it were not for the unspeakable Turk, but his blight rests on everything.  I could have kept awake that morning without Fred’s irreverent music, simply for sake of the scenery, if its freshness had been untainted.  But there hung a sickly, faint pall of smoke that robbed the green landscape of all liveliness.  One breathed weariness instead of wine.

We could not possibly have lost the way, because our crawling column had left a swath behind it of trampled grass and trodden crossing-places where the track wound and rewound in a game of hide-and-seek with tinkling streams.  But we began to wonder, nevertheless, why we caught up with nobody.