Life — September 27, 1900 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

254 Pro Bono Publico. GEE knew she had ‘‘a call” to be a poet ; She thought, she dreamed in nothing else but rhyme. Could she but mount her Pegasus and go it, She felt she'd reach her pinnacle in time. But, oh! like many poets, now and erst- whil She n ra And so, to stay her hunger and her thirst while She dreamed in verse, she had to take a “place.” 1 “cash,” the bugbear of our Now she's baking, and she’s frying, and she’s boiling In the kitchen of a flat—against her will. ‘Who knows but, while above the range she’s toiling, Her soul poetic things is thinking still. Who cares? Not I! not show it. My dinner in that flat, last night, I took, And I'll swear, although the world has lost a poet, It’s gained — what's twice as valuable—a cook! Paul West. Her cooking does Zoological Politics. Tue ASS AND THE SERPENT. i eas? daily toil of the Patient Ass was over, and the Burden Bearer was chewing his evening meal of thistles, when the insinuating Serpent, in glowing raiment, glided in and said in unctuous tones: ‘* How is the noblest and loveliest of his sex? How is the liver of the Brother of the Ox, the noble son of toil, the Pride of the Re- public, the caster of the ballot, Péace’s potent weapon? Does the horny-fisted, corny-hoofed proletariat enjoy the Full Dinner Pail and the Imperial diges- tion ?’’ Tho Ass waved his long, gray ears, and responded, gruffly: “Iam eating the epicurean diet of the Man with the Fall Pail, my undulating Spellbinder ; but I am not bursting with grub and gratitude. Prosperity has given me a sore back and a meagre dict, and Iam familiar with the curves of the gang who run this menagerie.” “Still the same, mad and merry wag, my freeborn toiler,’’ snickered the Spellbinder. ‘‘ Are you aware that the Octopus and Jellyfish pass sleepless nights worrying over your grocery and “LIP E coal bills? Do you realize that they pray fervently to expand and prosper you?” “Prosper me? Go chase yourself, you reformed cel. Expand me? Not on your life! They fed me once on tariff dried apples and watered my stock, and, when I got through with expansion and the veterinary, I went back to thistles and husks. My gar- rulous friend, I'm an easy mark ; but my memory is as long as my ears, and I’m dead on to the Jellyfish Syn- dicate. They get clover, I get thistles; I want less on my back and more in my inside. No more White Man's Barden for me, my wriggling Spell- binder.”” “You amaze me, O Ass,”’ said the Serpent, in pique. ‘Have you no pride in your brother, the War Horse, prancing to battle with flags and music. for glory and civilization?” “G'wan ! G'wan!”’ brayed the Ass, contemptuonsly, ‘* My fool brother feeds the vultures; I feed his widow and orphans. More glory means more loads on my back, less thistles in my stomach. The Octopus, the Jellyfish, the Horse Leech and the Serpent grow fat on glory; the Ass grows lean. I have reached the limit, and I am in for a kicking matinée. When I get through, some one else beside the Ass will earn his daily board by sweat and toil. Wind is filling, but not fattening.” “ But we will fill your dinner pail, stupid, and give you imperial harness,” the Serpent hissed. “‘No rainbows for me, Snakelets,”” said the Ass, calmly. ‘ Photographs of dinner pails may excite the imagina- tion, but they fill no aching voids at my equator. I have tried your bill of fare and have found it very unsub- stantial. I need a change of diet, and Ido not wish to be an Asiatic freight train. Go hire an automobile ; the Ass is done. Get thee gone! The Silver Serenader has given you the rattles, and rattlesnakes aredangerous. Ameri- can timothy and oats are good enough for me; give the Oriental wind-pudding to my Anglo-Saxon brother. My ears are long. and I'm hearing a lot.” The Serpent departed just in time to escape the hoofs of the great American burden bearer. Joseph Smith, “THAT's A OREAT POEM; WITT DON‘? You TRY IT ON THY EDITORS?" The Poet: 1 WAVEN'T ANY MONEY TO WME A DRAY! comicbooks.com