HE BIDED HIS TIME
There lived, one time, a shiftless chap, who wasn't satisfied;
To settle down and plug along he never could abide.
He felt the fire of greatness burn within his eager breast,
And knew himself cut out for deeds the highest and the best.
His spirit fairly fumed and frothed at cruel Fate's restraint;
Of favorless environment he ever made complaint.
"But some fine day," he used to say, "I'll set the world afire;
It's not for me unknown to be when I do so aspire."
Each day our hero might have found some labor to pursue;
On every side stood waiting work for willing hands to do;
The neighborhood wherein he dwelt had crying need of men
To mow the lawns, for instance, and to beat the rugs—but then
A man so keenly conscious of his real inward worth
Could hardly care to tackle toil so tainted of the earth.
And so, to pass the time away until his chance should come,
He boarded with his mother when he wasn't drinking rum.
No doubt, good-natured reader, you opine and apprehend
That this vain, shiftless person met a mean and sorry end.
The facts are these: He waited till the time, for us so sad,
When wagons run with gasoline became the reigning fad.
A sudden, wild demand arose for drivers, men with cheek,
And Shifty got a handsome job at fifty bones a week,
The people stare, where'er he goes; he's gained his great desire,
And every-day he sets the world, or part of it, afire.
Newark Evening News.