XVIII

I next sprung Pansy for a four-bit feed —
It was a giddy tax, but what care I? 
We shot the bill-of-fare from soup to pie
And lemonade (that cost an extra seed). 
“You’re the cute plunge,” says Pans’, and I agreed
That at a spenderfest I wasn’t shy, —
That when it came to rolling nickels by,
Willie the Cowboy was a perfect bleed.

She said that Thomas Lawson on a lark
Would faint away to see the way I blew;
She said I’d be the whizz in Central Park,
And Ready Cash to me seemed very few. 
I asked her, Did she need a Valentine? 
And she responded, “You’re the pink for mine!”

XIX

We took the iron-clad wave-tub home at ten,
And as we sat conversing on the deck
A certain Hester-street spaghetti-neck
Pipes through the darkness, “Who’s yer ladyfren’?”
There might have been a hoe-down there and then
(That war-ship never came so near a wreck);
The dog-eye boy got just as pale as heck
And made a duck behind the trenches, when —

Pansy boiled up and clamped me by a flip. 
“Nixie the kindergarten!” murmurs she. 
“Gents,” I replied out loud, “Get off the ship
And walk, or else nail down that repartee. 
This yard of lace I’m holding, so to speak,
Is pinned on tight — or will be in a week.”

XX

A-lopping on a car-barn bench I spied
Gilly the Grip, quite recent this g. m.,
Just like a lily on a broken stem
Or like a Salt Lake buck without a bride. 
“Chirk, Gilly, chirk!” I says in tones of pride,
“Perhaps this unhinged heart is just pro tem. 
The world is full of pompadours for them
That keep their search-lights peeled from side to side.”

But Gill remarked, “Eh, what?  Say, I’m so slow
I couldn’t catch the hour-hand on a clock. 
I’m simply stationary as they grow;. 
A lamp-post race could beat me round the block. 
You needn’t think you’re such an Alfred G.,
To motor by a quarry-cart like me!”

XXI

Next week the wedding-bells won’t do a thing,
For I’ll be there, I guess, to fill the set,
And Pansy’s Ma, she won’t be late, you bet,
To see the Reverend Mr. pull the string. 
Me for a spike-tailed scabbard and a ring,
A shell-back shirt, forsooth a peacherette. 
I’ll be the daintiest bridegroom ever yet;
Nothing to do but take the count, then — bing!

Love in a cottage run on union pay —
Can Teddy Roosevelt do a sum like that? 
Two can eat cheap as one, perhaps, but say,
You’ve got to beat a quarter pretty flat
To cork three squares, make Little Two Shoes snug
And keep the Wolf from chewing up the rug.

XXII