Read the book: «Familiar Faces»

THE CRY OF THE PUBLISHER

 
O my Author, do you hear the Autumn calling?
Does its message fail to reach you in your den,
Where the ink that once so sluggishly was crawling
Courses swiftly through your stylographic pen?
'Tis the season when the editor grows active,
When the office-boy looks longingly to you.
Won't you give him something novel and attractive
To review?
 
 
Never mind if you are frivolous or solemn,
If you only can be striking and unique,
The reviewers will concede you half a column
In their literary journals, any week.
And 'twill always be your publisher's ambition
To provide for the demand that you create,
And dispose of a gigantic first edition,
While you wait.
 
 
O my Author, can't you pull yourself together,
Try to expiate the failures of the past,
And just ask yourself dispassionately whether
You can't give us something better than your last?
If you really – if you truly – are a poet,
As you fancy – pray forgive my being terse —
Don't you think you might occasionally show it
In your verse?
 

THE CRY OF THE AUTHOR

 
O my Publisher, how dreadfully you bore me!
Of your censure I am frankly growing tired.
With your diatribes eternally before me,
How on earth can I expect to feel inspired?
You are orderly, no doubt, and systematic,
In that office where recumbent you recline;
You would modify your methods in an attic
Such as mine.
 
 
If you lived a sort of hand-to-mouth existence
(Where the mouth found less employment than the hand);
If your rhymes would lend your humour no assistance,
And your wit assumed a form that never scann'd;
If you sat and waited vainly at your table
While Calliope declined to give her cues,
You would realise how very far from stable
Was the Mews!
 
 
You would find it quite impossible to labour
With the patient perseverance of a drone,
While some tactless but enthusiastic neighbour
Played a cake walk on a wheezy gramophone,
While your peace was so disturbed by constant clatter,
That at length you grew accustomed – nay, resigned,
To the never-ending victory of Matter
Over Mind.
 
 
While you batten upon plovers' eggs and claret,
In the shelter of some fashionable club,
I am starving, very likely, in a garret,
Off the street so incorrectly labelled Grub,
Where the vintage smacks distinctly of the ink-butt,
And the atmosphere is redolent of toil,
And there's nothing for the journalist to drink but
Midnight oil!
 
 
It is useless to solicit inspiration
When one isn't in the true poetic mood,
When one contemplates the prospect of starvation,
And one's little ones are clamouring for food.
When one's tongue remains ingloriously tacit,
One is forced with some reluctance to admit
That, alas! (as Virgil said) Poeta nascit-
-Ur, non fit!
 
 
Then, my Publisher, be gentle with your poet;
Do not treat him with the harshness he deserves,
For, in fact, altho' you little seem to know it,
You are gradually getting on his nerves.
Kindly dam the foaming torrent of your curses,
While I ask you, – yes, and pause for a reply, —
Are you writing this immortal book of verses,
Or am I?
 

I
THE FUMBLER

 
Gentle Reader, charge your tumbler
With anæmic lemonade!
Let us toast our fellow-fumbler,
Who was surely born, not made.
None of all our friends is "dearer"
(Costs us more – to be jocose – );
No relation could be nearer,
More intensely "close"!
 
 
Hear him indistinctly mumbling
"Oh, I say, do let me pay!"
Watch him in his pocket fumbling,
In a dilatory way;
Plumbing the unmeasured deeps there,
With some muttered vague excuse,
For the coinage that he keeps there,
But will not produce.
 
 
If he joins you in a hansom,
You alone provide the fare;
Not for all a monarch's ransom
Would he pay his modest share.
He may fumble with his collar,
He may turn his pockets out,
He can never find that dollar
Which he spoke about!
 
 
Cigarettes he sometimes offers,
With a sort of old-world grace,
But, when you accept them, proffers
With surprise, an empty case.
Your cigars, instead, he'll snatch, and,
With the cunning of the fox,
Ask you firmly for a match, and
Pocket half your box!
 
 
If with him a meal you share, too,
You'll discover, when you've dined,
That your friend has taken care to
Leave his frugal purse behind.
"We must sup together later,"
He remarks, with right good-will,
"Pass the Heidsieck, please; and, waiter,
Bring my friend the bill!"
 
 
At some crowded railway station
He comes running up to you,
And exclaims with agitation,
"Take my ticket, will you, too?"
Though his pow'rs of conversation
In the train require no spur,
To this trifling obligation
He will not refer!
 
 
When at Bridge you win his money,
Do not think it odd or strange
If he says, "It's very funny,
But I find I've got no change!
Do remind me what I owe you,
When you see me in the street."
Mr. Fumbler, if I know you,
We shall never meet!
 
 
Fumbler, so serenely fumbling
In a pocket with thy thumb,
Never by good fortune stumbling
On the necessary sum,
Cease to make polite pretences,
Suited to thy niggard ends,
Of dividing the expenses
With confiding friends!
 
 
Here, we crown thee, fumbling brother,
With the fumbler's well-earned wreath,
Who would'st rob thine aged mother
Of her artificial teeth!
We at length are slowly learning
That some friendships cost too dear.
"Longest worms must have a turning,"
And our turn is near!
 
 
Henceforth, when a cab thou takest,
Thou a lonely way must wend;
Henceforth, when for food thou achest,
Thou must dine without a friend.
Thine excuses thou shalt mumble
Down some public telephone,
And if thou perforce must fumble,
Fumble all alone!
 

II
THE BARITONE

 
In many a boudoir nowadays
The baritone's decolleté throat
Produces weird unearthly lays,
Like some dyspeptic goat
Deprived but lately of her young
(But not, alas! of either lung).
 
 
His low-necked collar fails to show
The contours of his manly chest,
Since that has fallen far below
His "fancy evening vest."
Here, too, in picturesque relief,
Nestles his crimson handkerchief.
 
 
Will no one tell me why he sings
Such doleful melancholy lays,
Of withered summers, ruined springs,
Of happier bygone days,
And kindred topics, more or less
Designed to harass or depress?
 
 
That ballad in his bloated hand
Is of the old familiar blend: —
A faded flow'r, a maiden, and
A "brave kiss" at the end!
(The kind of kiss that, for a bet,
A man might give a Suffragette.)
 

(THE BARITONE'S BOUDOIR BALLAD)

 
Eyes that looked down into mine,
With a longing that seemed to say
Is it too late, dear heart, to wait
For the dawn of a brighter day?
Is it too late to laugh at fate?
See how the teardrops start!
Can we not weather the tempest together,
Dear Heart, Dear Heart?
 
 
Lips that I pressed to my own,
As I gazed at her yielding form, —
Turned with a groan, and then hastened alone
Into the teeth of the Storm!
Long, long ago! Still the winds blow!
Far have we drifted apart!
You live with Mother, and I love – another!
Dear Heart, Dear Heart!
 
 
At times some drinking-song inspires
Our hero to a vocal burst,
Until his audience, too, acquires
The most prodigious thirst.
And nobody would ever think
That milk was his peculiar drink!
 
 
What spacious days his song recalls,
When each monastic brotherhood
Could brew, within its private walls,
A vintage just as good
As that which restaurants purvey
As "rare old Tawny Port" to-day!
 

(THE BARITONE'S DRINKING SONG)

 
The Abbot he sits, as his rank befits,
With a bottle at either knee,
And he smacks his lips as he slowly sips
At his beaker of Malvoisie.
Sing Ho! Ho! Ho!
Let the red wine flow!
Let the sack flow fast and free!
His heart it grows merry on negus and sherry,
And never a care has he!
Ho! Ho!
(Ora pro nobis!)
Sing Ho! for the Malvoisie!
 
 
In cellar cool, on a highbacked stool,
The Friar he sits him down,
With the door tight shut, and an unbroached butt
Where the ale flows clear and brown.
Sing Ha! Sing Hi!
Till the cask runs dry,
His spirits shall never fail!
For no one is dryer than Francis the Friar,
When getting "outside the pail!"
Ho! Ho!
(Benedicimus!)
Sing Ho! for the nutbrown ale!
 
 
The Monk sits there, in his cell so bare,
And he lowers his tonsured head,
As he lifts the lid of the tankard hid
'Neath the straw of his trestle bed.
Sing Ho! Sink Hey!
From the break of day
Till the vesper-bell rings clear,
Of grave he makes merry and hastens to bury
His cares in the butt'rybier!
Ho! Ho!
(Pax Omnibuscum!)
Sing Ho! for the buttery beer!
 
 
Oh, find me some secure retreat,
Some Paradise for stricken souls,
Where amateurs no longer bleat
Their feeble baracoles,
From lungs that are so oddly placed
Where other people keep their waist;
 
 
Where public taste has quite outgrown
The faculty for being bored
By each anæmic baritone
Who murders "The Lost Chord,"
And singers, as a body, are
Cursed with a permanent catarrh!
 

III
THE ACTOR MANAGER

 
Long ago, our English actors
Ranked with rogues and vagabonds;
They were jailed as malefactors,
They were ducked in village ponds.
In the stocks the beadle shut them,
While the friends they chanced to meet
Would invariably cut them
In the street.
 
 
With suspicion people eyed them,
Ev'ry country-squire would feel
That his fallow-deer supplied them
With the makings of a meal.
They annexed the parson's rabbits,
Poached the pheasants of the peer,
And had other little habits
Just as queer!
 
 
Even Will, the Bard of Avon,
As a poacher stands confest,
And altho', of course, cleanshaven,
Was as barefaced as the rest.
He, a player by vocation,
Practised, like his buckskin'd pals,
Indiscriminate flirtation
With the gals!
 
 
Now, the am'rous actor's cravings
For romance are orthodox;
Nowadays he puts his savings,
Not his ankles, into "stocks."
Nobody to-day is doubting
That a halo round him clings;
One can see his shoulders sprouting
Into wings.
 
 
Watch the mummer managerial,
Centre of a rev'rent group;
Note with what an air imperial
He controls his timid troupe.
Deadheads scrape and bow before him,
To his doors the public flocks;
Even duchesses implore him
For a box.
 
 
Enemies, no doubt, will tell us
(What we should not ever guess)
That he is absurdly jealous
Of subordinates' success.
Minor mimes who score a hit or
Threaten to advance too fast,
Are advised to curb their wit or
Leave the cast!
 
 
Foes declare that, at rehearsal,
Managers are free of speech,
And unduly prone to curse all
Those who come within their reach.
With some tiny dams (or damlets)
They exhort each "walking gent – "
Language that potential Hamlets
Much resent.
 
 
Do not autocrats, dictators,
All who lead successful lives,
Swear repeatedly at waiters,
Curse consistently at wives?
Shall the heads of the Profession,
Histrionic argonauts,
Be denied the frank expression
Of their thoughts?
 
 
Will not we who so applaud them
Execrate with righteous rage
Player knaves who would defraud them
Of their centre of the stage?
Do we grudge these godlike creatures
Picture-cards that advertise —
Calcium lights that flood their features
From the flies?
 
 
No, for ev'ry leading actor
Who produces problem plays,
Is a most important factor
In the world of modern days.
Kings occasionally knight him,
Titled ladies take him up;
Even millionaires invite him
Out to sup.
 
 
Proudly he advances, trailing
Clouds of limelight from afar,
(Diffidence is not the failing
Of the true dramatic "star").
What cares he for rank or fashion,
Politics or place or pelf?
He whose one prevailing passion
Is himself?
 
 
All the world's a stage, we know it;
Managers, whose heads are twirled,
Think (to paraphrase the poet)
That the stage is all the world.
Other men discuss the summer,
Or the poor potato crop,
Nothing can prevent the mummer
Talking "shop."
 
 
With his Art as the objective
Of his intellectual pow'rs,
He (as usual, introspective)
Talks about himself for hours.
While his friends, who never dream of
Interrupting, stand agog,
He decants a ceaseless stream of
Monologue.
 
 
He is great. He has become it
By a long and arduous climb
To the crest, the crown, the summit
Of the Thespian tree – a lime!
There he chatters like a starling,
There, like Jove, he sometimes nods;
But he still remains the "darling
Of the gods!"
 

IV
THE GILDED YOUTH

 
A monocle he always wears,
Safe screwed within his dexter eye;
His mouth stands open wide, and snares
The too intrusive fly.
Were he to close his jaws, no doubt,
The eyeglass would at once fall out.
 
 
His choice of clothes is truly weird;
His jacket, short, and negligée,
Is slit behind, as tho' he feared
A tail might sprout some day.
One's eye must be inured to shocks
To stand the tartan of his socks.
 
 
The chessboard pattern of his check
Betrays its owner's florid taste;
A three-inch collar grips his neck,
A cummerbund his waist;
The trousers that his legs enshroud
Speak for themselves, they are so loud.
 
 
His shirt, his sleeve-links and his stud,
Are all of a cerulean hue,
And advertise that Norman blood, —
The bluest of the blue, —
Which, as a brief inspection shows,
Seems to have centred in his nose.
 
 
His saffron tresses, oiled with care,
Back from a vacant brow he scrapes;
From so compact a head of hair
No filament escapes.
(This surface-polish, friends complain,
Does not descend into the brain.)
 
 
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.
 

V
THE GOURMAND

(A Ballad of Reading Grill)

 
He did not wear his swallow-tail,
But a simple dinner-coat;
For once his spirits seemed to fail,
And his fund of anecdote.
His brow was drawn and damp and pale,
And a lump stood in his throat.
 
 
I never saw a person stare,
With looks so dour and blue,
Upon the square of bill-of-fare
We waiters call the "M'noo,"
And at ev'ry dainty mentioned there,
From entrée to ragout.
 
 
With head bent low, and cheeks aglow,
He viewed the groaning board,
For he wondered if the chef would show
The treasures of his hoard,
When a voice behind him whispered low,
"Sherry or 'ock, my lord?"
 
 
Gods! What a tumult rent the air,
As, with a frightful oath,
He seized the waiter by the hair
And cursed him for his sloth;
Then, grumbling like some stricken bear,
Angrily answered "Both!"
 
 
For each man drinks the thing he loves,
As tonic, dram or drug;
Some do it standing, in their gloves,
Some seated, from a jug;
The upper class from slim-stemmed glass,
The masses from a mug.
 

…*...*…*...*

 
The wine was slow to bring him woe,
But when the meal was through,
His wild remorse at ev'ry course
Each moment wilder grew.
For he who thinks to mix his drinks
Must mix his symptoms too.
 
 
Did he regret that tough noisette,
And the tougher tournedos,
The oysters dry, and the game so high,
And the soufflé flat and low,
Which the chef had planned with a heavy hand,
And the waiters served so slow?
 
 
Yet each approves the things he loves,
From caviare to pork;
Some guzzle cheese or new-grown peas,
Like a cormorant or stork;
The poor man's wife employs a knife,
The rich man's mate a fork.
 
 
Some gorge, forsooth, in early youth,
Some wait till they are old;
Some take their fare from earthenware,
And some from polished gold.
The gourmand gnaws in haste because
The plates so soon grow cold.
 
 
Some eat too swiftly, some too long,
In restaurant or grill;
Some, when their weak insides go wrong,
Try a postprandial pill.
For each man eats his fav'rite meats,
Yet each man is not ill.
 
 
He does not sicken in his bed,
Through a night of wild unrest,
With a snow-white bandage round his head,
And a poultice on his breast,
'Neath the nightmare weight of the things he ate
And omitted to digest.
 

…*...*…*...*

 
We know not whether meals be short,
Or whether meals be long;
All that we know of this resort
Proves that there's something wrong,
That the soup is weak and tastes of port,
And the fish is far too strong.
 
 
The bread they bake is quite opaque,
The butter full of hair;
Defunct sardines and flaccid "greens"
Are all they give us there.
Such cooking has been known to make
A common person swear.
 
 
And when misguided people feed,
At eve or afternoon,
Their harassed ears are never freed
From the fiddle and bassoon,
Which sow dyspepsia's subtlest seed,
With a most evil spoon.
 
 
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes,
Is a pastime rare and grand;
But to eat of fish or fowl or fruits
To a Blue Hungarian Band
Is a thing that suits nor men nor brutes,
As the world should understand.
 
 
Such music baffles human talk,
And gags each genial guest;
A grillroom orchestra can baulk
All efforts to digest,
Till the chops will not lie still, but walk
All night upon one's chest.
 

…*...*…*...*

 
Six times a table here he booked,
Six times he sat and scann'd
The list of dishes, badly cooked
By the chef's unskilful hand;
And I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the band.
 
 
He did not swear or tear his hair,
But ordered wine galore,
As though it were some vintage rare
From an old Falernian store;
With open mouth he slaked his drouth,
And loudly called for more.
 
 
He was the type that waiters know,
Who simply lives to feed,
Who little cares what food they show
 

 
If it be food indeed,
Who, when his appetite is low,
Falls back upon his greed.
 
 
For each man eats his fav'rite meats,
(Provided by his wife);
Or cheese or chalk, or peas or pork,
(For such, alas! is life!)
The rich man eats them with a fork,
The poor man with a knife.
 

VI.
THE DENTIST

 
What a dangerous trade is the dentist's!
With what perils he has to contend,
As he plunges his paws
In the gibbering jaws
Of some trusting but terrified friend,
With the risk that before he is ten minutes older
His arms may be bitten off short at the shoulder!
 
 
He is born in the West, is the dentist,
And he speaks with a delicate twang,
When polite as a prince,
He requests you to "rinse,"
After gently removing a fang.
('Tis to save wear-and-tear to the mouth, one supposes,
That dentists consistently talk through their noses.)
 
 
He is painfully shy, is the dentist;
For he lives such a hand-to-mouth life.
When the sex known as "fair"
Comes and sits in his chair,
He will call for his sister or wife,
For a lady-companion or female relation, —
So strong is the instinct of self-preservation!
 
 
He's a talkative man, is the dentist;
Though his patients are loth to reply.
With his fist in your mouth
He may say North is South,
And you cannot well give him the lie;
For it's hard to converse on such themes as the weather,
With jawbone and tongue fastened firmly together!
 
 
To a sensitive soul like the dentist
You should always avoid talking "shop."
If he drops in to tea,
You must certainly see
That your wife doesn't ask him to "stop!"
He is facile princeps, perhaps, of his calling;
But jokes about princip'ly forceps are galling!
 
 
There are people who say of the dentist
That he isn't a gentleman quite.
Half the gents that we see
Are no gentler than he,
And but few are so sweetly polite;
For of all the strange trades to which men are apprentic'd;
The gentlest, I'm certain, is that of the dentist!
 

VII
THE MAN WHO KNOWS

 
How few of us contrive to shine
In ordinary conversation
As brightly as this human mine
Of universal information,
Or give mankind the benefit
Of such encyclopædic wit.
 
 
How few of us can lightly touch
On any topic one may mention
With so much savoir-faire, or such
Exasperating condescension;
Or take so lively a delight
In setting other people right.
 
 
Whatever you may do or dream,
The Man Who Knows has dreamt or done it;
If you propound some novel scheme,
The Man Who Knows has long begun it;
Should you evolve a repartee,
"I made that yesterday," says he.
 
 
With what a supercilious air
He listens to your newest story,
As tho' your latest legend were
Some chestnut long of beard and hoary.
"When I recount that yarn," he'll say,
"I end it in a diff'rent way."
 
 
With a superior smile he caps
Your ev'ry statement with another,
If you have lost your voice, perhaps,
He knows a man who's lost his mother;
If you've a cold, 'tis not so bad
As one that once his uncle had.
 
 
Should you describe some strange event
That happened to a near relation, —
Some fatal motor accident,
Some droll or ticklish situation, —
"In eighteen-eighty-eight," says he,
"The very same occurred to me."
 
 
Each man who dies to him supplies
A peg on which to air his knowledge;
"Poor So-and-So," he sadly sighs,
"He shared a room with me at college.
I knew his sister at Ostend.
He was my father's dearest friend."
 
 
If you relate some incident,
A trifle scandalous or shady,
An anecdote you've heard anent
Some wealthy or distinguished lady,
He stops you with a sudden sign: —
"She is a relative of mine!"
 
 
When on some simple point of fact
You fancy him impaled securely,
He either smiles with silent tact,
Or else he shakes his head obscurely,
Suggesting that he might disclose
Portentous secrets, if he chose.
 
 
But if you dare to doubt his word,
At once that puts him on his metal;
"Your facts," says he, "are quite absurd!
As for Mount Popocatepetl, —
Of course it's not in Mexico;
I've been there, and I ought to know!"
 
 
Or "George, how you exaggerate!
It isn't half-past seven, nearly!
I make it seven-twenty-eight;
Your watch is out of order, clearly.
Mine cannot possibly be slow;
I set it half an hour ago."
 
 
He knows a foreign health-resort
Where tourists are quite inoffensive;
He knows a brand of ancient port,
Comparatively inexpensive;
And he will tell you where to get
The choicest Turkish cigarette.
 
 
He knows hotels at which to dine
And take the most fastidious guest to;
He knows a mine in Argentine
In which you safely can invest, too;
He knows the shop where you can buy
The most recherché hat or tie.
 
 
If you require a motor-car,
He has a cousin who can tell you
Of something second-hand but far
Less costly than the trade would sell you;
And if you want a chauffeur, too,
He knows the very man for you.
 
 
There's nothing that he doesn't know,
Except – a rather grave omission —
How weary his relations grow
Of such unceasing erudition, —
How fervently his fellows long
That just for once he should be wrong.
 
 
O Man Who Knows, we humbly ask
That thou shouldst cease such grateful labours —
Suspend thy self-inflicted task
Of lecturing thine erring neighbours;
For in thy knowledge we detect
No faintest sign of Intellect.
 

VIII
THE FADDIST

 
Gentle Reader, is your bosom filled with loathing
At the mention of the "Simple Life" brigade?
Do you shudder at their Jaeger underclothing,
Which is "fearfully and wonderfully made"?
Though in manner they resemble "poor relations,"
Or umbrellas which their owners have forgot,
They contribute to the gaiety of nations,
Do they not?
 
 
They are harmless little people, tame and quiet,
Who will feed out of a fellow-creature's hand,
If he happens to provide them with a diet
Of a temperance and vegetable brand.
They can easily subsist – a thing to brag of —
In the draughtiest of sanitary huts,
On a "mute inglorious Stilson" and a bag of
Monkey-nuts.
 
 
Ev'ry faddist is, of course, an early riser;
When he leaves his couch (at 6 a. m. perhaps)
He will struggle with some patent "Exerciser,"
Until threatened with a physical collapse.
He wears collars made of cellular materials,
And sandals in the place of leather boots,
And his victuals are composed of either cereals
Or roots.
 
 
He believes in drinking quantities of water,
Undiluted by the essence of the grape;
And he deprecates the universal slaughter
Of dumb animals in any form or shape.
So his breakfast-food (a patent, too, of course), is
Made of oats which he monotonously chews,
Mixed with chaff which any self-respecting horses
Would refuse.
 
 
He discovers fatal microbes that are hiding
In the liquids that his fellow creatures drink;
Fell bacilli that are stealthily residing
In our carpets, in our kisses, in our ink!
In his eagerness such parasites to smother,
He will keep himself so sterilised and aired,
That one fancies he would disinfect his mother,
If he dared.
 
 
In a vegetarian restaurant you'll find him,
Where he feeds, like any other anthropoid,
Upon dishes which must certainly remind him
Of the cocoanuts his ancestors enjoyed.
As he masticates his monkeyfood, you wonder
If his humour is as meagre as his fare,
And you look to see his tail depending under-
-Neath his chair.
 
 
To his friends he never wearies of explaining
The exact amount of times they ought to chew,
The advantages of "totally abstaining,"
And the joys of walking barefoot in the dew;
How that slumber must be summoned circumspectly,
In an attitude conducive to repose,
And that breathing should be carried on correctly
Through the nose.
 
 
A pathetic little figure is my hero,
With a sparse and wizened beard, and straggly hair,
Upon which is perched a sort of a sombrero
Such as operatic brigands love to wear.
He may eat the nuts his prehistoric sires ate,
He may flourish upon sawdust mixed with bran,
But he looks more like a Nonconformist pirate
Than a man!
 

IX
THE COLONEL

 
Observe him, in the best armchair,
At ev'ry "Service" Club reclining!
How brightly through its close-cropped hair!
His polished skull is shining!
His form, inert and comatose,
Suggests a stertorous repose.
 
 
What strains are these that echo clear?
What music on our ears is falling?
Through his Æolian nose we hear
The distant East a-calling.
(A good example here is found
Of slumber that is truly "sound.")
 
 
He dreams of India's coral strand,
Where, camping by the Jimjam River,
He sacrificed his figure and
The best part of his liver,
And, in some fever-stricken hole,
Mislaid his pow'rs of self-control.
 
 
Blow lightly on his head, and note
Its surface change from chrome to hectic;
Examine that pneumatic throat,
That visage apoplectic.
His colour-scheme is of the type
That plums affect when over-ripe.
 
 
With rising gorge he stands erect,
Awakened by your indiscretion,
Becoming slowly Dunlop-necked —
(To coin a new expression);
Where stud and collar form a juncture,
You contemplate immediate puncture.
 
 
His head, like some inverted cup,
Ascends, a Phoenix, from its ashes;
His eyebrows rise and beckon up
His "porterhouse" moustaches;¹
And you acknowledge, as you flinch,
That he's a Colonel – ev'ry inch!
 
 
The voice that once in strident tones
Across the barrack-square could carry,
Reverberates and megaphones
A rich vocabulary.
(His "rude forefathers," you'll agree,
Were never half so rude as he.)
 
 
As blatantly he catalogues
The grievances from which he suffers: —
"The Service gone, sir, to the dogs!"
"The men, sir, all damduffers!"
In so invet'rate a complainer
You recognise the "old champaigner."
 
 
His raven locks (just two or three)
Recall their retrospective splendour;
One of the brave Old Guard is he,
That dyes but won't surrender;
With fits of petulance afflicted,
When questioned, crossed, or contradicted.
 
 
But as, alas! from poor-man's gout,
Combined with chronic indigestion,
The breed is quickly dying out —
(The fact admits no question) —
I'll give you, if advice you're taking,
 
 
A recipe for Colonel-making.
Select some subaltern whose tone
Is bluff and anything but "soul-y;"
Transplant him to a torrid zone;
There leave him stewing slowly;
Remove his liver and his hair,
Then serve up hot in an armchair.
 

X
THE WAITER

 
"He also serves who only stands and waits!"
My hero does all three, and even more.
Bearing a dozen food-congested plates,
With silent tread (altho' his feet are sore),
He swiftly skates across the parquet floor.
None can afford completely to ignore him,
Because, of course, he "carries all before him!"
 
 
Endowed with some of Cinquevalli's charm,
He poises plate on plate, and never swerves;
Two in each hand, three more up either arm, —
A feat of balancing which tries the nerves
Of the least timid customer he serves.
So firm his carriage, and his gait so stable,
He is the Blondin of the dinner-table.
 
 
Rising abruptly at the break of day
(A custom more might copy, I confess),
The waiter hastens, with the least delay,
To don that unbecoming evening-dress
Which etiquette compels him to possess.
('Tis too the conjurer's accustomed habit,
Whence he evolves a goldfish or a rabbit.)
 
 
Each calling its especial trademark bears.
The anarchist parades a red cravat;
The eminent physician always wears
A stethoscope concealed within his hat;
A diamond stud proclaims the plutocrat;
The rural dean displays a sable gaiter,
And evening dress distinguishes the waiter.
 
 
Time was when he was elderly and staid,
With long sidewhiskers and an old-world air.
How gently, with what rev'rent hands, he laid
A bottle of some vintage rich and rare
Within a pail of ice beneath your chair,
Like some proud steward in a hall baronial
Performing an important ceremonial.
 
 
How cultured his well-modulated voice,
His manner how distingué and discreet,
As he directed your capricious choice
To what 'twere best and pleasantest to eat,
Or warmly recommended the Lafitte.
A perfect pattern of the genus homo,
More like a bishop than a major-domo.
 
 
He kept as grave as the proverbial tomb
When in some haven "hush'd and safe apart,"
You sought the shelter of a private room,
To entertain the lady of your heart
At a delightful dinner à la carte.
(The consequences would, he knew, be shocking
Were he perchance to enter without knocking.)
 
 
Now he is haggard, pale and highly-strung,
The alien product of some Southern sun.
Who speaks an unintelligible tongue
And serves impatient patrons at a run,
Snatching away their plates before they've done.
Brisk as a bee, and restless as the Ocean,
He solves the problem of perpetual motion.
 
 
You would not look to him for good advice;
To him your choice you never would resign.
He gauges from the point of view of price
The rival worth of each respective wine;
His tastes, indeed, are frankly Philistine,
And, with a mien indifferent or placid,
He serves your claret cold and corked and acid.
 
 
His is a tragic fate, a dreary lot.
Think sometimes of his troubles, I entreat,
Who in a crowded restaurant and hot
Walks to and fro on tired and tender feet,
Watching his hungry fellow-creatures eat!
What form of earthly hardship could be greater
Than that which daily overwhelms the waiter?
 

XI
THE POLICEMAN

 
My hero may be daily seen
In ev'ry crowded London street;
Longsuff'ring, stoical, serene,
With huge pontoonlike feet,
His boots so stout, so squat, so square,
A motor-car might shelter there.
 
 
The traffic's cataract he dams,
With hands that half obscure the sun,
Like monstrous, vast Virginian hams.
A trifle underdone;
The while the matron and the maid
Pass safely by beneath their shade.
 
 
His courtesy is quite unique,
His tact and patience have no end;
He helps the helpless and the weak,
He is the children's friend;
And nobody can feel alarm
Who clings to his paternal arm.
 
 
When foreign tourists go astray
In any tangled thoroughfare,
Or spinster ladies lose their way, —
The constable is there.
With smile avuncular and bland,
He leads them gently by the hand.
 
 
He stalks on duty through the night,
A bull's-eye lantern at his belt;
His muffled steps are noiseless quite,
His soles unheard – tho' felt!
And burglars, when a crib they crack,
Are forced to do so from the back.
 
 
In far New York the "man in blue"
Is Irish by direct descent.
His bludgeon is intended to
Inflict a nasty dent;
And if you ask him for advice,
He knocks you senseless in a trice.
 
 
In Paris he is fierce and small,
But tho' he twirls his waxed moustache,
The natives heed him not at all.
No more does the apache.
And cabmen, when he lifts his palm,
Drive over him without a qualm.
 
 
The German minion of the law
Is stern, inflexible, austere.
His presence fills his friends with awe,
The foreigner with fear.
Your doom is sealed if he should pass
And find you walking on the grass!
 
 
But no policeman can compare
With London's own partic'lar pet;
A martyr he who stands foursquare
To ev'ry Suffragette,
And when that lady kicks his shins
Or bites his ankles, merely grins.
 
 
He may not be as bright, forsooth,
As Dr. Watson's famous foil, —
Sherlock, that keen unerring sleuth
Immortalised by Doyle,
And Patti who, where'er she roams,
Asserts "There's no Police like Holmes!"
 
 
But though his movements, staid and slow,
Provide the vulgar with a jest,
How true the heart that beats below
That whistle at his breast!
How perfect an example he
Of what a constable should be!