OTHER PEOPLE INCLUDING MARK TWAIN

Ah me! Had Horace when his muse was flagging, But given laughing Lalage a rest, And kept Mæcenas’ pantaloons from bagging, (Whatever ’twas he wore below his vest.)

If when his frisky Pegasus he mounted, He’d sung, instead of the eternal HER The stylish HIM, he might have been accounted A gentleman as well as litterateur. If Shakespeare had abstained from malty liquors, And spent the time (when not purloining plays) In pressing Francis Bacon’s velvet knickers He might thereby have gained a social raise. If Tommy Moore when not devoutly pressing His suit in amorous rhyme, had pressed instead His patrons lordly “pants,” it is past guessing What titles had been showered on his head. Had Bobby Burns renounced his Highland lassies, And tuned his pipes to “Gentlemen’s attire,” He might in time have risen from the masses And been addressed as Robert Burns, Esquire. If Hall Caine—............................ ..................................................... ..................................................... ..................but why drag in Hall Caine? Come, Chaloner, confess like a good feller By “Gentleman and litterateur” you meant The literary style of the Best Seller And the strictly pure refinement of the Gent.

One of those queer, artistic dives, Where funny people had their fling. Artists, and writers, and their wives— Poets, and all that sort of thing. Here, too, to view the vulgar herd And sip the daring demi-tasse— Be-cloaked, be-diamonded, be-furred— Came women of the better class. With its Parisian atmosphere, It had a Latin Quarter ring. Painters and journalists came here— Actors, and all that sort of thing. Here, too, to watch the Great Ungroomed And sip the dangerous demi-tasse, Be-furred, be-feathered and be-plumed, Came women of the better class. Here Howells dined—Saint Gaudens, Nast, Kipling, Mark Twain and Peter Dunne, Nell Terry, and not least though last One Robert Louis Stevenson. And mingling with that underworld, To sip the devilish demi-tasse, Be-cloaked, be-diamonded, be-pearled, Came women of the better class. Like geese to see the lions fed, They came—be-jewelled and be-laced, Only to find the lions fled. “My Word!” cried they, “What wretched taste!” Ermined and minked and Persian-lambed, Be-puffed (be-painted, too, alas!) Be-decked, be-diamonded—be-damned! The women of the better class.

Well I recall how first I met Mark Twain—an infant barely three Rolling a tiny cigarette While cooing on his nurse’s knee.

Since then in every sort of place I’ve met with Mark and heard him joke, Yet how can I describe his face? I never saw it for the smoke.

At school he won a smokership, At Harvard College (Cambridge, Mass.) His name was soon on every lip, They made him “smoker” of his class. Who will forget his smoking bout With Mount Vesuvius—our cheers— When Mount Vesuvius went out And didn’t smoke again for years? The news was flashed to England’s King, Who begged Mark Twain to come and stay, Offered him dukedoms—anything To smoke the London fog away. But Mark was firm. “I bow,” said he, “To no imperial command, No ducal coronet for me, My smoke is for my native land!”

For Mark there waits a brighter crown! When Peter comes his card to read— He’ll take the sign “No Smoking” down, Then Heaven will be Heaven indeed.

Beneath a Fruitful Apple Tree Sate Pompom, youth of high degree, And Prince of Apple-Tartary; While in the branches overhead The apples blushed with rapture red, As from a great book on his knees He read of the Hesperides, And how, to win the apples gold, One Hercules, a Hero bold, A hundred-headed Dragon shew. “How brave! How wonderful! How true!” Exclaimed the apples, flushed and red. “That proves what we have always said: We come of Ancient Pedigree! We’re of the Applestocracy! Our title cannot be denied.” Whereat they swelled and swelled with Pride Until their High and Mighty Air Was more than Apple Tree could bear. “Come!” cried the Tree, “you must vacate My boughs—they will not bear your weight!” Pride goes before a fall. Alas! Next morning, prone upon the grass, Blushing for shame, the Apples lay, And when Queen Pompom passed that way She picked them up, and by and by She made them into Apple Pie.

I burst upon the reader’s eye With verbal trumpet blaring, Proclaiming me the latest cry In fictionary daring— Vital, compelling, hectic, rare, Heart-gripping, epoch-making! A woman’s naked soul laid bare, A climax record-breaking! A quivering, pulsating plot, The mystery of a red room, A story to be read red hot In boudoir, or bedroom, An Eve, repentant, up to date, Confesses what her fall meant; You simply won’t know how to wait Until the next installment.

I come from heaven knows where—or when. My pedigree is shady. My father was a Fountain Pen; My mother, a Typelady, Who smote the keys from morn till night With fingers swift and taper, Till I appeared, all clean and bright, On reams of foolscap paper. And now in serial form I flow, And flout at style and diction, As like a babbling brook I go To join the Sea of Fiction. Some streams, I know, more deeply flow, And some for speed endeavor. Short stories come, short stories go, But I’ll go on forever. I glitter like a foolish string Of pearls, with polish painful, With epigrams of doubtful ring And platitudes Hall-Caineful. And many a mood and tense amiss, And metaphor amuddle, And here and there a clinging kiss, And here and there a cuddle— And here and there a phrase in French, To give a touch linguisty; And here and there a Fisher wench, And here and there a Christy. And here and there and everywhere My thin stream slowly trickles ’Twixt Bunk’s Elixir for the Hair And Black and Croswell’s Pickles. And here a temperamental scene, Fervid, intense, Byronic— Tosses tempestuous between Ayre’s Soap and Tinkham’s Tonic. A sprightly conversation’s flow Is checked by Soak and Stingham’s Pink Pills, to reappear below An ad for ladies’ thingums. The well-known slip ’twixt cup and lip Here, too, finds confirmation— “He raised his glass”—Thy Anti-Grip! Beware of Imitations! —“Up to his lips; when on his wrist He felt a grip, steel-sinewed; The glass fell, and a hoarse voice hissed The words”—To be Continued.

Some streams, we know, more deeply flow, And some for speed endeavor. Short stories come, short stories go, But this goes on forever.