The boarder rose as if in roaring wrath, The waiter jerked his linen jacket off And fairly danced about in gypsy style, Impatient for a fight. But then the guest As if with self-command restrained himself, And said to the assembled company, “There must be lines in all society To regulate our conduct. Lines, I say, Which separate us from the vulgar herd, With whom we may not fight. I draw the line At waiters.” Here he looked about the room To be applauded; but the only sound Which rose was that of a tremendous slap On his own face, and then a mighty roar Of laughter from the happy company, For all his valour was a fly-away. So he sat down too terrified to speak; And then the waiter took a dripping jug Of ice-water and poured out every drop Upon his head, yea, water, ice, and all; And then that boarder burst in bitter tears, And blubbered like a boy, while all the room Rang with redoubled laughter. Then a guest Proposed a vote of thanks to him who had Put down a public nuisance, and the next Passed round a hat and took collection up To give the waiter as a small reward For punishing a coward. Then he rose, And since that hour has been a fly-away. THE MASHER The word to “mash,” in the sense of causing love or attracting by a glance or fascinating look, came into ordinary slang from the American stage. Thus an actress was often fined for “mashing” or smiling at men in the audience. It was introduced by the well-known gypsy family of actors, C., among whom Romany was habitually spoken. The word “masher” or “mash” means in that tongue to allure, delude, or entice. It was doubtless much aided in its popularity by its quasi-identity with the English word. A girl could be called a masher as she could be called a man-killer, or killing. But there can be no doubt as to the gypsy origin of “mash” as used on the stage. I am indebted for this information to the late well-known _impresario_ Palmer of New York, and I made a note of it years before the term had become at all popular. It was in the Indian summer-time, when life is tender brown, And people in the country talk of going into town, When the nights are crisp and cooling, though the sun is warm by day, In the home-like town of Glasgow, in the State of Iowa; It was in the railroad deepô of that greatly-favoured zone, That a young man met a stranger, who was still not all unknown, For they had run-countered casual in riding in the car, And the latter to the previous had offered a cigar. Now as the primal gentleman was nominated Gale, It follows that the secondary man was Mr. Dale; This is called poetic justice when arrangements fit in time, And Fate allows the titles to accommodate in rhyme.