At last he went and sickened, he was feeling very sad; the plots he made had thickened, and the women all were mad. Decks said he had nephritis. They all pronounced him ill. But he died of feminitis, and he lies on Money Hill.
THE VULTURES ON THE ZONE.
O all the jolly roughnecks and pushers of the pen, a short and pungent lecture I will give. Just take this bit of doggerel, and read it if you’re men, and use it as a lesson while you live. If you go to Sam’s on Sunday, and you meet a smirking guy with commissary silk hose on his feet, if he smiles from ear to ear, make up your mind to hear a story that is anything but sweet. He will say I met last night Bill Smith’s wife, that’s right, an’, say, that woman, she just follers me around, while poor Bill is all alone, for she never is at home, and any guy can get her if he’s sound. If your blood is red, my son, you will take and draw your gun, and aim it at the gizzard of the brute, or you’ll punch his booby head till he wishes he was dead and make of him a spectacle that’s cute.
A chump that talks of women is nothing that is human; make up your mind he’s just a low-down liar, who wouldn’t stand a chance to win a passing glance from women who just live for men to hire. By the hundreds on the Zone this class of vultures roam; they are ever on the watch to pick a flaw; they covet neighbors’ wives who are living decent lives, and to save their coin they’d break the moral law.
Now I hope you all are wise to the lying, boastful spies, who criticize their betters in the street, who pretend they’re looking sly and who wink the other eye at every decent woman that they meet. When some vulture tries this chaff, just say, “You make me laugh,” and hold him up to ridicule, the guy; you may bet your bottom dollar ’tis some gink that doesn’t holler, that gets the precious favors on the sly.
A FAKER’S FAREWELL.
AREWELL, O thou land of sweet sunshine, where I walked with non-sweatable pace; I was fed, I was clothed, and I humbugged; my lady I decked out with grace. From the cake with sugary frosting all covered with raisins I go, to the land where the natives are often addicted to shoveling snow, where I shan’t have a coon right before me to run when I bid for a thing, I go from the land of sweet loafing, where our Uncle George is the king.
Farewell, thou dear land of the Aztec, O, pulga, farewell, to thy sting, to the hum of the social mosquito, that Gorgas could trap while a-wing. Farewell to the nights of gay doing, to the mirth which I had on the sly, some kinds that I now am a-rueing, while our uncle just winked on the sly. When into a new job I sidle, somewhere in Nebraska’s broad space, I ain’t got enough to live idle, but I pray that the Lord give me grace, to find such a cinch unmolested, where no dictator ever shall say: “Your job I’m about to have vested, in a man who will work for his pay.” O! politics, where are the graces the Irish have seen in thy wake? I’ve dropped into many soft places, and was ousted out just for your sake. But no job was ever as downy as this one, the truth here I tell. My bald brow is wrinkled and frowny; dear land of the Aztec, farewell!