The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor | Page 5

gum-drops to a macaroon.
"I could die dancing, Danny!" murmurs she.?(I gambolled on her corns, she hollered, "Don't!")?"I could die dancing also" (this from me),"?"But if you'll pass me up, I guess I won't."?Just then some lemon-sport observed my glide?And warbled, "Slide, you frozen chicken, slide!"
XVIII
I next sprung Pansy for a four-bit feed -?It was a giddy tax, but what care I??We shot the bill-of-fare from soup to pie?And lemonade (that cost an extra seed).?"You're the cute plunge," says Pans', and I agreed?That at a spenderfest I wasn't shy, -?That when it came to rolling nickels by,?Willie the Cowboy was a perfect bleed.
She said that Thomas Lawson on a lark?Would faint away to see the way I blew;?She said I'd be the whizz in Central Park,?And Ready Cash to me seemed very few.?I asked her, Did she need a Valentine??And she responded, "You're the pink for mine!"
XIX
We took the iron-clad wave-tub home at ten,?And as we sat conversing on the deck?A certain Hester-street spaghetti-neck?Pipes through the darkness, "Who's yer ladyfren'?"?There might have been a hoe-down there and then?(That war-ship never came so near a wreck);?The dog-eye boy got just as pale as heck?And made a duck behind the trenches, when -
Pansy boiled up and clamped me by a flip.?"Nixie the kindergarten!" murmurs she.?"Gents," I replied out loud, "Get off the ship?And walk, or else nail down that repartee.?This yard of lace I'm holding, so to speak,?Is pinned on tight - or will be in a week."
XX
A-lopping on a car-barn bench I spied?Gilly the Grip, quite recent this g. m.,?Just like a lily on a broken stem?Or like a Salt Lake buck without a bride.?"Chirk, Gilly, chirk!" I says in tones of pride,?"Perhaps this unhinged heart is just pro tem.?The world is full of pompadours for them?That keep their search-lights peeled from side to side."
But Gill remarked, "Eh, what? Say, I'm so slow?I couldn't catch the hour-hand on a clock.?I'm simply stationary as they grow;.?A lamp-post race could beat me round the block.?You needn't think you're such an Alfred G.,?To motor by a quarry-cart like me!"
XXI
Next week the wedding-bells won't do a thing,?For I'll be there, I guess, to fill the set,?And Pansy's Ma, she won't be late, you bet,?To see the Reverend Mr. pull the string.?Me for a spike-tailed scabbard and a ring,?A shell-back shirt, forsooth a peacherette.?I'll be the daintiest bridegroom ever yet;?Nothing to do but take the count, then - bing!
Love in a cottage run on union pay -?Can Teddy Roosevelt do a sum like that??Two can eat cheap as one, perhaps, but say,?You've got to beat a quarter pretty flat?To cork three squares, make Little Two Shoes snug?And keep the Wolf from chewing up the rug.
XXII
Methinks I'm tagged to join the Worry Club,?To chase the fleeting rhino through the gloom,?To bag the boodle, trap the wild mazume?And scratch for corn when Pansy hollers "Grub!"?They say I'll turn as sickly as a chub?When on the First, with dull and deadly boom,?The Rent comes round and walks into the room,?Remarking, "Peel or else file out, you scrub!"
But when your arms are full of girl and fluff?You hide your nerve behind a yard of grin;?You'd spit into a wild cat's face or bluff?A flock of dragons with a safety pin.?Life's a slow skate, but Love's the dopey gum?That puts a brewery horse in racing trim.
Epilogue
Kind reader, when you 'phone don't ask for me?Enquiring how a Flossie should be won -?There isn't any Rule Book, are you on??And Queenie can't be coaxed by recipee.?Some girls like hard-luck music, minor key,?Some like the Gas-car Gussie act, hot ton,?Others are simply fierce for Jolly John?Who loves to make a noise like repartee.
None but the Nerve, say I, deserves the Fair,?And stony hearts can't stand up long to chin.?If Willie-on-the-doormat lingers there?The chances are he'll be Invited In.?Up against Love the Candy Kid is nix;?The Porous Plaster wins because it sticks
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