I have been in a fair dust-up in Denver City, Made many a baresark rush; I have bluffed with Death in my time and scooped the kitty, Smashing a cool straight flush; I have gouged my jack-knife deep in a victim's thorax (Golly, how the blood did gush!); I have scalped some dozens of skulls with an Indian war-axe Without being put to the blush. I've killed with stilettos at times and with crude sandbagging, Or a brute belaying-pin; With a twisted cord I have frequently done my scragging, And doped with devilish gin; I remember once in a boarding-house racket at Rio How my snickersnee snicked clean in; And I booted a blackguard to death with consid'rable _brio_ One evening in Tien-tsin. I've run amok with a kris and sent men howling; With a kukri I've killed my prey; I'm an amateur still--I admit it--at disembow'ling, But I've settled a few that way; And I mind me well (for I still can sniff the aroma Of that particular fray) How I quartered and cut into ribbons some beggars at Boma On rather a busy day. But I'm blowed--being really a rabid humanitarian, And a vegetarian too-- If I mean to devour an unfortunate fellow Aryan In the Island of Oahu. I have done dire deeds by request, without any evasion, But this thing I will not do; If they won't be content with a "fake" for this single occasion, My cinema job is through. * * * * * From a list of popular novels:-- "_The Beloved Premier_, by H. MAXWELL. _The Greater Law_, by VICTORIA CROSS." Politicians can take their choice. * * * * * The Latest Cinema Poster. "Our Sea Rooms now open. No Finer Death." * * * * * The Men that Matter. Sound the clarion, FILSON, FYFE, To all the reading world proclaim One signed half-column, straight from life, Is worth a page without a name. * * * * * THE ART OF CONVERSATION. I had a terrible experience yesterday, one of life's inky black hours which will bring a shudder whenever in future days memory seizes an idle moment to refresh herself. I had been dining with Scarfield and his mother at Hampstead, and with the entry of the coffee he had pleaded a sudden dyspepsia and withdrawn. So his mother, a dear colourless old lady, undertook to entertain me. By her desire I lighted a cigar.