The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor | Page 5

Albany
Can knock a poem from a
wedge of pie;
But just give me a check on Mrs. C.,
For rapid-filling
ballast, murmurs I.
Kings may prefer some tasty wads of hash,
But
they don't feed at fifteen cents per crash!
XVII
Pansy and me for Coney Sunday noon
To see a perfect lady bump the
bumps;
We rubbered at the lions with the chumps
And took the
Wellman special to the moon.
She asks me, "Dance?" I answers, "Just
as soon,"
And so we clutched and whirled into the gumps,
But
every time I went to stir my stumps
They stuck like 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
0. END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE LOVE
SONNETS OF A CAR CONDUCTOR ***
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