“I am a sword swallower in a circus side-show,” replied the caller. * * * * * _Little Joe says, “They am jest as many sebbens on de dice as anything else, ony dey is bashfull.”_ _Smokehouse Poetry_ _The greatest poem of the squared circle ever brought to light is in store for March Whiz Bang readers, “The Kid’s Last Fight.” That noted recitation of years ago has been obtained by the Whiz Bang, reset to verse, and will hold the boards in the March issue._ _The way he staggered made me sick,_ _I stalled, McGee yelled “cop him quick!”_ _The crowd was wise and yellin’ “fake,”_ _They’d seen the chance I wouldn’t take._ * * * * * “Chi Slim” Twangs ’is Bloomin’ Lyre By J. Eugene Chrisman. _Author of “Poppies,” written exclusively for Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang._ By the lake-front near Chicago with her elbows on her knee There’s a widder-woman waiting and I know she waits for me; When the wind is from the stock-yards every odor seems to say “Come you back you lost star-boarder, come you back you skunk and pay!” Her apron it was greasy and her hair it hung in strings, And her name was Sarah Lukens but it had been lots o’ things! When I saw her first a’diggin’ up the makin’s for a stew And she wasn’t wastin’ nothing that a dog could chaw in two. Blinkin’ rough for me to lead, tooth-less, sallow and knock-knee’d Wasn’t carin’ much for class tho—what I needed was a feed. When the bunch had grabbed their hand-out and we had ’em on the go, Then she’d start me for “Dutch” Ryan’s with a two-bit piece to throw. With her head upon my shoulder at the second growler full, She was lonesome bo, that widder with the rough-stuff that she’d pull! How I used to feed her full of the “mush-talk” and the bull For the snow had begun blowin’ and I didn’t like to pull! But that’s all put behind me, long ago and far away Since I hit out for St. Looey one night on the C. & A. But they’re tellin’ in the jungles that the winter’s one best bet For a young and handsome hobo is to be a widder’s pet. Oh them boardin’ kitchen smells as she fed me jams and jells And the skuts of “suds” from Ryans—I won’t ever need naught else! Ship me somewhere south of “Chi” though where the bloomin’ mob ain’t cursed With a Volstead disposition and a man can quench his thirst For the winter snows are falling and its there that I would be Either Juarez or Havana with a widder on my knee! * * * * * Charley Wong _Copyrighted. By permission of the Author, Green Room Club, New York._ By H. A. D’Arcy. The west was pretty wild when Bill Durant and I went out, ’Twer in ’59 or ’60, somewhar that about, Bill took his pretty wife along (they’d been wed about a year), A buxom kind of girl she war, that never thought o’ fear.