THE POLITE MAN
WHEN Wigglewax is on the street, a charming smile adorns his face; to every dame he haps to meet, he bows with courtly, old world grace. His seat, when riding in a car, to any girl he’ll sweetly yield; and women praise him near and far, and say he is a Chesterfield. Throughout the town, from west to east, the man for chivalry is famed. “The Bayards are not all deceased,” the women say, when he is named. At home this Bayard isn’t thus; his eye is fierce, his face is sour; he looks around for things to cuss, and jaws the women by the hour. His daughters tremble at his frown, and wonder why he’s such a bear; his wife would like to jump the town, and hide herself most anywhere. But if a visitor drops in, his manner changes with a jerk, he wears his false and shallow grin, and bows like some jimtwisted Turk. Then for his daughters and his wife he wears his smile serene and fat, and callers say, “No sordid strife can enter such a home as that!” A million frauds like Wigglewax are smirking on the streets today, and when at eve they seek their shacks, they’ll beef and grouch, the old stale way.
UNCONQUERED
LET tribulation’s waters roll, and drench me as I don’t deserve! I am the captain of my soul, I am the colonel of my nerve. Don’t say my boasting’s out of place, don’t greet me with a jeer or scoff; I’ve met misfortune face to face, and pulled its blooming whiskers off. For I have sounded all the deeps of poverty and ill and woe, and that old smile I wear for keeps still pushed my features to and fro. Oh, I have walked the wintry streets all night because I had no bed; and I have hungered for the eats, and no one handed me the bread. And I have herded with the swine like that old prodigal of yore, and this elastic smile of mine upon my countenance I wore. For I believed and still believe that nothing ill is here to stay; the woozy woe, that makes us grieve, tomorrow will be blown away. My old-time griefs went up in smoke, and I remain a giggling bard; I look on trouble as a joke, and chortle when it hits me hard. It’s all your attitude of mind that makes you gay or sad, my boy, that makes your work a beastly grind, or makes it seem a round of joy. The mind within me governs all, and brings me gladness or disgust; I am the captain of my gall, I am the major of my crust.
REGULAR HOURS
I HIT the hay at ten o’clock, and then I sleep around the block, till half past five; I hear the early robin’s voice, and see the sunrise, and rejoice that I’m alive. From pain and katzenjammer free, my breakfast tastes as good to me as any meal; I throw in luscious buckwheat cakes, and scrambled eggs and sirloin steaks, and breaded veal. And as downtown I gaily wend, I often overtake a friend who’s gone to waste; “I stayed up late last night,” he sighs, “and now I have two bloodshot eyes, and dark brown taste; I’d give a picayune to die, for I’m so full of grief that I can hardly walk; I’ll have to brace the drugstore clerks and throw some bromo to my works, or they will balk.” But yesterday I saw a man to whom had been attached the can by angry boss, he wassailed all the night away, and then showed up for work by day a total loss. Don’t turn the night time into day, or loaf along the Great White Way—that habit grows; if to the front you hope to keep, you must devote your nights to sleep—I tell you those.