What does he do? You well may ask.
Nothing at all, to be exact!
Yet he performs this tedious task
With quite consummate tact.
(No cause for wonder this, in truth,
Since he has practised it from youth.)
To some wide window-seat he goes,
And gazes out with torpid eyes;
Then yawns politely through his nose,
Looks at his watch, and sighs;
Regards his boots with dumb regret,
And lights another cigarette.
Then glances through his morning's mail,
And now, his daily labours done,
Feels far too comatose and frail
To give the dog a run;
Besides, as he reflects with shame,
He can't recall the creature's name!
Safe in a front-row stall he sits,
Where lyric comedy is played;
And, after, to some local Ritz,
Escorts a chorus-maid.
The jeunesse dorée of to-day
Is called the jeunesse stage-doorée!
How slow the weary days must seem
(That to his fellows fly so fast),
To one who in a waking-dream
Awaits the next repast!
How tiresome and how long they feel,
Those hours dividing meal from meal!
For, like Othello, he must find
His "occupation gone," poor soul,
Who can but wander in his mind
When he requires a stroll;
A mental sphere, one may surmise,
Too cramped for healthy exercise.
But since a poet has declared
That "nothing walks with aimless feet,"
To ask why such a type is spared
To grace the public street,
Would be most curiously misplaced,
And in the very worst of taste.
