A VILLAIN IN REVOLT.
I have been in a fair dust-up in Denver City,
Made many a baresark rush;
I have bluffed with Death in my time and scooped the kitty,
Smashing a cool straight flush;
I have gouged my jack-knife deep in a victim's thorax
(Golly, how the blood did gush!);
I have scalped some dozens of skulls with an Indian war-axe
Without being put to the blush.
I've killed with stilettos at times and with crude sandbagging,
Or a brute belaying-pin;
With a twisted cord I have frequently done my scragging,
And doped with devilish gin;
I remember once in a boarding-house racket at Rio
How my snickersnee snicked clean in;
And I booted a blackguard to death with consid'rable brio
One evening in Tien-tsin.
I've run amok with a kris and sent men howling;
With a kukri I've killed my prey;
I'm an amateur still—I admit it—at disembow'ling,
But I've settled a few that way;
And I mind me well (for I still can sniff the aroma
Of that particular fray)
How I quartered and cut into ribbons some beggars at Boma
On rather a busy day.
But I'm blowed—being really a rabid humanitarian,
And a vegetarian too—
If I mean to devour an unfortunate fellow Aryan
In the Island of Oahu.
I have done dire deeds by request, without any evasion,
But this thing I will not do;
If they won't be content with a "fake" for this single occasion,
My cinema job is through.
From a list of popular novels:—
"The Beloved Premier, by H. Maxwell.
The Greater Law, by Victoria Cross."
Politicians can take their choice.
The Latest Cinema Poster.
"Our Sea Rooms now open.
No Finer Death."
The Men that Matter.
Sound the clarion, Filson, Fyfe,
To all the reading world proclaim
One signed half-column, straight from life,
Is worth a page without a name.