When Gallic ginks Cook-toured to Rome, Or roaring Teutons from the Rhine, The thought would fill some yokel's dome To dally with the stranger's wine-- Next reel: tough students sprain his spine And bean him with a curule rod And roll him down the Palatine: The Wastrel always drops his Wad! Raus! Bacchus, with that breath of thine, And sad eyes like a bilious cod! Me for the Tracts--I've learned, in fine, The Wastrel always drops his Wad! XXVIII--AN OBJECT LESSON To Bobby Rogers [Ill 0152] A young man in a Mu-se-um Was showing me a mummy Who lay there patiently, but glum, A-clasping of his tummy. . . Cophetua or Kafoozelum, Or some such regal rummy. “In youth,” says I, “this king was gay, In spite of Mrs. Grundy; He burnt the Nile one Saturday, But where was he on Sunday?” I added, in my learned way, “'Sic transit gloria mundi!' “He conquered princes not a few; They voted as he bid 'em. From Babylon to Timbuctoo, From Sheba up to Siddim, He thought of things he shouldn't do, And then he went and did 'em! “He loved to send out royal bids For high Egyptian jinkses Where pretty Theban katydids And little Memphian minxes Would trot among the pyramids And tango round the sphinxes . . . “But now, in his sarcophagus, How quite deceased we find him, With sand in his aesophagus And all his past behind him, While Time (the anthropophagus!) Is whetting teeth to grind him. “Then note, my lad, the end of kings! Therefore, avoid ambition, For earthly greatness all has wings. You stick to your position, And if men come with crowns and things To tempt you, go a-fishin'!” “Was I a Kingly Souse,” says he, Impressed from A to Izzard, “Would I wind up so leathery As this departed wizard, With baldness on the dome of me, And gravel in my gizzard?” “You would without a doubt,” says I, “Lose wealth and health and hair, O!” Shaken with sobs he made reply, “I promise, and I swear, O! That I will never drink!--and try And never be a Pharaoh!” XXIX--A KANSAS TRAGEDY To Charley Stansbury