But up in his den--(Ah, my bachelor chum!)-- I have sat with him there in the gloom, When the laugh of his lips died away to become But a phantom of mirth in the room. And to look on him there you would love him, for all His ridiculous ways, and be dumb As the little girl-face that smiles down from the wall On the tears of my bachelor chum. {78} [Illustration: Art and poetry--headpiece] ART AND POETRY TO HOMER DAVENPORT Wess he says, and sort o' grins, "Art and Poetry is twins! "Yit, if I'd my pick, I'd shake Poetry, and no mistake! "Pictures, allus, 'peared to _me_, Clean laid over Poetry! {79} "Let me _draw_, and then, i jings, I'll not keer a straw who sings. "'F I could draw as you have drew, Like to jes' swop pens with you! "Picture-drawin' 's my pet vision Of Life-work in Lands Elysian. "Pictures is first language we Find hacked out in History. "Most delight we ever took Was in our first Picture-book. "'Thout the funny picture-makers, They'd be lots more undertakers! "Still, as I say, Rhymes and Art 'Smighty hard to tell apart. "Songs and pictures go together Same as birds and summer weather." So Wess says, and sort o' grins, "Art and Poetry is twins." {80} [Illustration: Down to the Capital--headpiece] DOWN TO THE CAPITAL I' be'n down to the Capital at Washington, D. C., Where Congerss meets and passes on the pensions ort to be Allowed to old one-legged chaps, like me, 'at sence the war Don't wear their pants in pairs at all--and yit how proud we are! {81} Old Flukens, from our deestrick, jes' turned in and tuck and made Me stay with him whilse I was there; and longer 'at I stayed The more I kep' a-wantin' jes' to kind o' git away, And yit a-feelin' sociabler with Flukens ever' day. You see I'd got the idy--and I guess most folks agrees-- 'At men as rich as him, you know, kin do jes' what they please; A man worth stacks o' money, and a Congerssman and all, And livin' in a buildin' bigger'n Masonic Hall! Now mind, I'm not a-faultin' Fluke--he made his money square: We both was Forty-niners, and both bu'sted gittin' there; I weakened and onwindlassed, and he stuck and stayed and made His millions; don't know what _I'm_ worth untel my pension's paid. But I was goin' to tell you--er a-ruther goin' to try To tell you how he's livin' now: gas burnin' mighty nigh In ever' room about the house; and ever' night, about, Some blame reception goin' on, and money goin' out. {82} They's people there from all the world--jes' ever' kind 'at lives, Injuns and all! and Senators, and Ripresentatives; And girls, you know, jes' dressed in gauze and roses, I declare, And even old men shamblin' round a-waltzin' with 'em there!