LIBRARY

U. S.
NAVAL
HOSPITAL
a
ALRAWS.
NfcW
fORK
\
Ogden
Nash
FREE
WHEELING
LIBRARY
U, S.
NAVAL ^-10S?!Ta;
ST. AUANS. NtW
YOk^
Illustrated
by Soglow
Simon
and
Schuster .
New York
.
1931
ALL RIGHTS HESERVED
COPTRIGHT, 1931, BY OgDEN NaSH
Pttblished by Simon axd Schuster, Inc.
386 fourth ate., new yobjc
feinted and bound ik v, s. .
ACKNOWXEDGMENT
There is no longer any question in the author's
mind that 0. Soglow is the greatest man in the
world

occupying^ in
fact^
a position so solitary
as to annihilate any jealousy which might other-
wise have arisen on the discovery that the pictures
im, this hook are much fun/nier than the verses.
The author also wislies to thank the editors
of
The New Yorker and College Humor
for
permission to reprint several
of
the following
fragments.
This
book
is
gratefully
inscribed
to
Dice
and
Max
CONTENTS
Watchman, What
of
the First First Ladyf 19
Peacock Alley-oop! 21
The Rabbits
23
Did Some One Say "Babies"?
. 25
Reflection on a Common Misapprehension 27
Incompetent and Immaterial 28
The Oyster
80
The Lama 81
Savonarola
of
Mazda Lane 83
Peekaboo, I See a Red 86
Tallyho-Hum
86
Let's Stay Home and Make Friends 89
A Thought on the Manner
of
Those Who Strive to
Achieve the Manner Called Hemingway 41
Autobiographical Note 42
Just One More Plea to the Sultan
of
the Metro-
pultan
48
Hip, Hip, Poiret
48
I'll Call You Back Later
47
Reflection on the Skyline
48
Alma Matter
67,
Mind Aggies 3 49
To a Small Boy Standing on My Shoes While I Am
Wearing Them
SI
9
Ccnitents
In Memoriam

Herman Melville 63
Lines in Praise
of
a Date Made Praiseworthy Solely
by Something Very Nice That Happened to It 64
Reflection on Relationships 65
Scram, Lion! 57
Reflection on the Passage
of
Time, Its Inevitability
and Its Quirks
59
The Cow 60
The Cobra 61
Remember the Old Folks at Home 63
Reflection on the Fallibility
of
Nemesis 65
Such an Old Theme, But Such Fresh Distress 67
Lines to Be Muttered Through Clenched Teeth and
Quite a Lot
of
Lather, in the Country 71
The Anti-Saloon Leaguer 74
The Anti-Prohibitionist 75
Encyclopedia Britannica
76
Reflection on the Physical Tastes
of
Our Intellec-
tual Betters
77
From a Manhattan Tomb
78
Malice Domestic 81
The Roach
83
The Phoenix
86
Without All Due Respect
87
The Baby
89
Manhattan Monkey
91
"My Child Is Phlegmatic . .
."

Anxious Parent 92
Reflection on Steps to Be Taken
94
Money Is Everything
06
10
Contents
Oh to Be Odd! 97
Pajamas, Huhf or, Dresset Were So Nice 98
The Judge 99
Ha! Original Sin! 100
11
PUBLISHER'S FOREWORD
The public response to Mr. Nash's previous book,
Hard Lines, was so indignant that it seemed not
quite safe to issue a second volume without at least
attempting to justify its extraordinary contents.
The publishers made every effort to communicate
with the author, but failed repeatedly to elicit
either an explanation or an apology. Members of
the young man's family, however, were good
enough to supply a stenographic transcript of
his last public appearance, which is herewith
appended.
(The
office of
Dr. Durfee, the emment neurologist.
Mr. Nash, a patient, has JTist
entered. Dr. Durfee
is somewhat taken aback at tlie sight
of
a masculine
patient, hut prepares to make the best
of
his
plight.
)
Dr. Durfee

^Well sir, what seems to be the

trouble.'*
Mr. NashI get things mixed up.
Dr. DurfeeCome, come ! That \\dll never do.
Mr. NashThat's what I say.
Dr. DurfeeWe must look into this. What kind
of things do you get mixed up?
Mr. NashDifferent things.
Id
Publisher's Foreword
Dr. DurfeeBe more frank, please, if you want
me to help you.
Mr. NashWell, mostly names.
Dr. Durfee

^Any particular kind of names?

Names of ladies? Very embarrassing, ha ha!
Mr. NashLiterary names. You know. Books.
Authors. Heroes. Heroines.
Dr. Durfee

^Well, well. Are you a writer, Mr.

Nash?
Mr. NashWell, partly. And partly a publisher.
I'm a reader, too.
Dr. DurfeeYou read?
Mr. Nash

^Always. And I get mixed up.

Dr. DurfeeGive me an example, please.
Mr. NashWell, it began with Jack the Giant-
Killer.
Dr. DurfeeHmm, Jack the Giant-Killer.
Mr. NashI got him mixed up with Jack and the
Beanstalk.
Dr. DurfeeBecause the names were similar, I
daresay.
Mr. NashSure you'd daresay. CooHdge would
daresay that.
Dr. DurfeeNever mind Coolidge. Continue,
please.
Mr. NashThen there was Snow White and Rose
Red. I got them mixed up, too. Mixed up with
each other and with the War of the Roses. York,
Snow White; Lancaster, Rose Red. Gree, Dr.
Durfee, it was terrible.
U
Publisher's Foreword
Dr. DurfeeHow about Bluebeard and Blact-
beard?
Mr. NashTo this day I couldn't tell which was
which. And who wrote the Odyssey.'* Was it
Homer, or James Joyce? I don't know.
Dr. Durfee

^You can't be much of a reader.

Mr. NashSure I'm a reader, but I get mixed
up. And why not? Look at Winston Churchill.
Dr. DurfeeWhat about Winston Churchill?
Mr. NashThere's two of him : that's what about
him.
Dr. DurfeeNo, no, surely not two of him.
Mr. NashYes sir: one, two. A novelist and a
prime minister.
Dr. DurfeeWliich is the novelist?
Mr. NashWinston Churchill.
Dr. DurfeeAnd the prime minister?
Mr. NashWinston Churchill.
Dr. DurfeeI fail to see your problem, Mr.
Nash. If they're both Winston Churchill

Mr. NashThey're not\ They're different Win-

ston Churchills.
Dr. DurfeeA Winston Churchill is a Winston
Churchill. (He opens a book which is lying be-
fore
him.) See? Science says so.
Mr. NashOh, if you want to start getting sci-
entifictracking me down like the Hound of the
d'Urbevilles

Dr. DurfeeYou mean Tess of the Basker-

villes

16
Piihlisher's Foreword
Mr. NashYou mean Lady Chatterley's Fan

Dr. DurfeeYou mean Lady Windermere's

Lover

Mr. Nash

^You mean Sinclair Lewis

Dr. DurfeeYou mean Upton Sinclair

Mr. NashYou mean "A. E."

Dr. DurfeeYou mean "H. D."

Mr. NashYou mean John Vassos

Dr. DurfeeYou mean John Dos Passes

Mr. NashYou mean Maxwell Anderson

Dr. DurfeeYou mean Sherwood Bodenheim

Mr. NashYou mean Zoe Gale

Dr. Durfee

^You mean Zona Akins

Mr. NashYou mean Miss Lulu Belle

Dr. DurfeeYou mean Lulu Bett

Mr. NashYou mean Wallace Irwin^

Dr. DurfeeYou mean Will Irvin

Mr. NashYou mean Irwin S. Cobb

Dr. DurfeeShut up, you

!
Mr. NashI will not shut up. You're a fine doc-
tor. You're a credit to 3"our profession. You're
a real help, you are! I'll bet you can't tell the
Gibbses apart. I'll bet you can't tell the Bensons
apart. I'll bet you can't even tell the Powyses
apart
!
Dr. DurfeeAnyway I can tell the Sitwells
apart.
Mr. NashYaah ! now I know you're lying. No-
body can tell the Sitwells apart.
Dr. DurfeeWell, Mr. Nash, I guess the game's
Pvhlisher^s Foreword
up. You've got me. What are you going to do
about it?
Mr. Nash

^You seem a decent sort of chap at

heart, Dr. Durfee. Tell you what, I'll give you
one chance. Do you know Ben Hecht?
Dr. DurfeeYou mean Abou Ben Hecht

Mr. Nash {seizing the telephone)Operance,

Operance, I want an ambulator!
It
Watchman, What
of
the First First Lady?
Everybody can tell you the date of George Wash-
ington's birth,
But who knows the date on which Mrs. George
Washington first appeared on earth?
Isn't there any justice
For the former Mrs. Custis?
Of course her memory is perpetuated by a hotel,
But Hell.
It's a disgrace to every United State
That we don't know more about our first presi-
dent's only mate.
We all know a lot of stories about the wife of
King Arthur
But you never hear any about Martha,
And we have all read a lot of romantic tales
about Napoleon's Empress's life
But nobody even writes them about Washington's
wife.
And we have all seen Katharine Cornell or Helen
Hayes or Ethel Barrymore
Impersonate Cleopatra, who wasn't even any-
body's real wife but nothing more or less than
a promiscuous un-American parrymore,
And watched George Bernard Shaw with the skill
of a surgeon
19
Watchmmi, WJmt
of
the First First Lady?
Dissect Joan of Arc, who was neither a wife nor
a paramour but nothing but a vurgeon.
But has anybody done anything about the mistress
of the nation's whitest house?
No, and yet but for her the nation would be the
child of a man without a spouse.
20
Peacock Alley-oopt
At the Official Opening of the New Waldorf
Astoria
Every newspaper in town sang a front page
Gloria.
Such fervent hurrahs
Could hardly have been occasioned by the opening
of a subway from Times Square to Venus or
Mars.
The ceremony was enacted in the presence of a
handpicked handful of twelve thousand
guests
Among whom it is safe to assume there was one
official of Wanamaker's but none of the sales
force of Altman's or Best's.
The President of the Waldorf Astoria, Mr. Lucius
Boomer,
Charmed everyone by being in rare good humor,
And the President of the United States, Mr.
Herbert Hoover,
Not to be outdone in any such maneuver.
Without mentioning beer added to the general en-
joyment
By declaring over the radio that the construction
of the Waldorf Astoria had done much to
alleviate unemployment,
91
Peacock Alley-oop!
And editorial writers and photographers etcetera
attained new heights of dizziness
In informing the public of the simple fact that
another hotel was ready for business,
And so much was said about the far-famed hos-
pitality of the Waldorf
That any naive listener must have imagined that
the old custom of a hotel charging for room,
board and extras was going to be caldorf
.
Well, Naive Listener, if you really believe it is,
and act on your belief you'll probably end up
in prison,
Because it ison.
ess
The Rabbits
Here's a verse about rabbits
That doesn't mention their habits.
es
Did Some One Say "Babies''?
Everybody who has a baby thinks everybody who
hasn't a baby ought to have a baby,
Which accounts for the success of such plays as
The Irish Rose of Abie,
The idea apparently being that just by being
fruitful
You are doing something beautful,
Which if it is true
Means that the common housefly is several mil-
lion times more beautiful than me or you.
Also, everybody who hasn't a baby thinks it cor-
rect to give tongue
To ecstatic phrases and clauses at the sight of
other people's young,
As if all their life they had been counting the
days, hours and minutes
Till the Big Moment when they were privileged
to watch Sister discolor her bib with
owwange duice, tawwots and spinutes.
It is probably heresy
To say that the whole thing looks like a gigantic
world-wide consperesy
But how else can you explain
Everybody's going around with babies on the
brain
And at the sight of a baby, going perfectly wild,
Did Some One Say "Babies*'?
When it's common if unexpressed knowledge that
there is nothing more boring than a very
young child?
Who is responsible for this propaganda that fiUs
all our houses from their attics to their
kitchens ?
Is it the perambulator trust or the safety pin
manufacturers or the census takers or the
obstetritchens ?
Why do we continue not only to be hoodwinked
by them but even lend ourselves to furthering
their plots
By all the time talking about how nice it is to
have a houseful of tots?
Men and women everywhere would have a
lot
more chance of acquiring recreation and
fame and financial independence
If they didn't have to spend most of their time
and money tending and supporting two or
three unattractive descendants.
We could soon upset this kettle of fish, forsooth.
If every adult would only come out and tell every
other adult the truth.
To arms, adults ! Kindle the beacon fires
!
Women, do you want to be nothing but dams?
Men, do you want to be nothing but sires?
To arms, President Hoover! Call out the com-
missions, the army, the navy, the marines,
the militia, the cadets and the middies.
Down with the kiddies
!
Reflection
on a Common Misapprehension
So MANY really nice ladies are overjoyed
To be thought hard-boiled when as a matter of
fact they are only Freud.
7
Incompetent and Immaterial
There was a lady loved a gent
But her reward was meager.
Said her gentleman friend to liis gentlemen friends
The lady's over eager.
There was a lady loved a gent,
She held her backbone rigid.
Said her gentleman friend to his gentlemen friends
The lady's far too frigid.
)85
Incompetent and Immaterial
There was a lady loved herself
But equipped with Cold and Hot.
Said her gentlemen friends to their gentlemen
friends
Whatever it is, she's got.
Oh let us laugh at the lines above,
Less precious than pearls and rubies

Telling the ladies what ladies know,

That gentlemen
all are boobies.
9
The Oyster
The oyster's
a
Confusing suitor;
It's masc, and fern.,
And even neuter.
But whether husband,
Pal, or wife.
It leads a soothing
Sort of life.
I'd like to be
An oyster, say,
In August, June,
July, or May.
80
The Lama
The one-1 lama,
He's a priest.
The two-1 llama,
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn't any
Three-l lllama.*

The author's attention has been called to a type of confla-

gration known as a three-alarmer. Pooh.
SI
Savonarola
of
Mazda Lane
Perhaps it is a little late in the decade to cele-
brate Mr. Walter Winchell
Since for several years he has made the Mirror and
several out-of-town newspapers in which he
is syndicated a Monday morning essinchell,
But he is a highly significant item of contempo-
rary Americana
And I think we should try him on our plana.
He is, for instance, the stork
Of New York.
You may get married and think you've circum-
vented the hoodoo,
But you haven't, and he knows it before you do.
The reportorial activities of Walter
Do not cease at the altar,
But, whether by excercise of his ingenuity or by
payment of a premium.
He seems also to get in on the epithalemium.
You deem your nuptial couch inviolate, then sud-
denly Lo and Beehold
!
You've been keyholed.
The news may be phrased in phrases too recondite
To be intelligible to anybody but a Broadway and
Forty-secondite,
Nevertheless
SS
Savonarola
of
Mazda Lane
The whole world knows in October that an heir
will in July your union bless.
In fact, should you be in Mr. Winchell's Who's
Who,
Nothing about you is taboo.
Men, do you regularly stay up until daylight
Under the impression that you are thereby crash-
ing the elite.'*
Do you think you can join the ne plus ultra
By playing one night stands as an adultra?
Mr. Winchell says nay,
And you will roue the day.
Ladies, do you think because you're married to
a tedious New York Stuyvesant or Virginia
Lee or Boston Bigelow
You can quietly spend your evenings playing
around with a gigolo?
Do you think you are safe because nobody can
class you as polyandrous
Without being slandrous.'*
Your prestige is not sufficiently awesome and
solemn
To keep you out of that illegintimate column.
Mr. Winchell is one of God's scourges
To those with extra-mural urges.
So bravo then for Mr. Winchell, without whose
chronicle of current peccadillos
A
lot more of the right people would be this eve-
ning on the wrong pillows.
Si.
Peekaboo, I See a Red
The results of the patriotic activities of the
D. A. R. might not be so minus
Were the ladies not troubled by sinus.
Alas, every time they try to put people who don't
agree with them on the stand as defendants
They find themselves troubled by the sinus of the
Declaration of Independence.
36
TaUyho'Hum
Have you ever gone visiting for a weekend of
ravelry
Only to find yourself surrounded by the Cavalry?
Not regular cavalry like Huzzars or Lancers or
Northwest Mounted Police,
But people who actually ride horses for pleasure
in times of peace.
People who expose themselves gratis to risks for
which we pay the Lancer, the Huzzar and
the Mountie,
People who recover from a broken rib at Meadow-
brook in time to fracture a vertebra at Pea-
pack which will just be knitting when they
split a collarbone in Harford County,
People who otherwise may be cynics and stoics,
But go yowling berserk whenever the cheerleader
says "Yoicks
!"
Well, you can take the word of an old mossback
Who's never been on hossback,
It's very hard to chat
With people like that,
Because they are not very interested in talking
about the screen or the stage or the latest
best-selling book or dud book.
All they want to ta^k about is the Stud book,
36
Tallyho-Hum
And willy nilly
You've got to hear about the children of the ch. f.,
And if you think you can safely join in a family
conversation, Dear me,
The mirth that you provoke when you ask after
the children of the b.
g.
!
On such seas you are indeed a ship without a
rudder
If like myself you do not know a hock from a girth
or a wither from an udder,
And you will feel about horses, even those born
and bred in Old Kentucky,
Much as you do about streptocucci.
37
Lefs Stay Home and Make Friends
May I give you a one-word comment on the aver-
age revue?
Pew!
Goodness sakes, couldn't they be a little less
anatomical
And a little more comical?
Couldn't they have a few more jests
And a few less breasts?
Must they consist of nothing but scenes such as
may be observed at the Zoo in the monkey- or
yak-house,
And revelry suggestive less of Bacchus than the
backhouse?
Must all theif skits on I'amour
Be fished from the sour?
Can the producers think of no subtler way of eas-
ing themselves into Isottas and their girl-
friends into sables
Than by luring a lot of people to pay a lot of
money to look at a lot of other peoples'
nabels ?
The undersigned obviously stands in strong need
of a physic
If he is expected to find the above mentioned an
aphrodysic.
39
Let*^ Stay Home arid Make Friends
Not that he proposes that all of our spectacular
extravaganzas
Should be of the type that could be legally pre-
sented in Wichita, Kansas
;
Not that he insists that the female form should
be fenced off as something of unmentionable
sacredness
;
Only that he believes that a bare finger in pri-
vate is fraught with more significance than
any amount of public nacredness.
4<f
A Thought on the Manner
of Those Who
Strive to Achieve the Manner Called
Hemingway
Some b
Gets pi
His diction
Don't make good fiction.
il
Autobiographical Note
I WAS a student
Who cudent
See any more difference between studying and
sleeping
Than there is between A. S. M. Hutchinson and
Warwick Deeping.
As a result
I was always getting expult.
JiLst One More Plea to the Sultan
of
the
Metropultan
Dear Mr. Gatti Cassazza
Couldn't you, wizout too much bozza,
Import a ballet
To interpret the Rudy atque Vallee?
JfS
Hip, Hip, Poiret
The styles that are thought up by the stylists on
the banks of the Seine
Give this writer a peine.
Way down upon the soignee river
They do nothing but invent costumes that make
you quake and quiver.
Today for instance no matter which way you turn
you see nothing but Empress Eugenie,
Empress Eugenie, Empress Eugenie,
A costume which may look pretty well on a very
few but looks terrible on a great many.
You can tell me Eugenie was a very fine empress
But in spite of all the rumors I can't believe she
was much of a tempress,
Because I rather think that any one she was
tempting would have laughed
The first time he beheld her aft,
Which, even though it were her specialte de maison
Must have removed much of the romance from a
liaison.
And that's
Not the worst. Look at the hats
!
Getting feathers in your ears and yout nose
Is the least of your woes
;
Girls who used to be beautiful Mona Lisas
45
Hip, Hip, Poiret
Walk the avenue looking like One-eyed Connelisas.
Yes, the latest from Paris
Would make a good comedy for Lee or Jake Shu-
bert or Sam H. Harris,
But as examples of allure
They do not appeal to this reviewer.
46
ril Call You Back Later
When you describe people as their various van-
ities require,
Critics classify you as a sugary liar;
And when you describe them so that the descrip-
tionfits,
The people themselves have conniptionfits.
Why then does anybody write?
I'll bite.
47
Reflection on the Skyline
The Empire State of Mr. Al Smith
Exceeds Mr. Chrysler's in height by nearly 1/5
But the Chryslier
Shines nicelier.
^8
Alma Matter 67, Mind Aggies 3
Few booksellers
Can afford de luxe cellars,
But purveyors to thirsts
Own Galsworthy firsts.
A9
To a Small Boy Standing on My Shoes While
I Am Wearing Them
Let's straighten this out, my little man,
And reach an agreement if we can.
I entered your door as an honored guest.
My shoes are shined and my trousers are pressed,
And I won't stretch out and read you the funnies
And I won't pretend that we're Easter bunnies.
If you must get somebody down on the floor,
What in the hell are your parents for?
I do not like the things that you say
And I hate the games that you want to play.
No matter how frightfully hard you try,
We've little in common, you and I.
The interest I take in my neighbor's nursery
Would have to grow, to be even cursory,
And I would that performing sons and nephews
Were carted away with the daily refuse,
And I hold that frolicsome daughters and nieces
Are ample excuse for breaking leases.
You may take a sock at your daddy's tummy
Or climb all over your doting mummy,
SI
To a Small Boy Standing on My Shoes
But keep your attentions to me in check
Or, sonny boy, I will wring your neck.
A happier man today I'd be
Had a visiting adult done it to me.
62
In Memoriam

Herman Melville
Perhaps 1930's outstanding literary event
Was Random House's discovery of that American
classic, Moby Kent.
68
Lines in Praise
of
a Date Made Praiseworthy
Solely by Something Very Nice That
Happened to It
As THROUGH the calendar I delve
I pause to rejoice in April twelve.
Yea, be I in sickness or be I in health
My favorite date is April twealth.
It comes upon us, as a rule.
Eleven days after April Fool,
And eighteen days ahead of May Day
When spring is generally in its heyday.
Down in New Mexico the chapparal
Is doing nicely by the twelfth of Apparal,
And Bay State towns such as Lowell and Pep-
perell
Begin to bloom on the twelfth of Epperell.
But regardless of the matter of weather,
There isn't any question whether.
No, not till the trumpet is blown by Gabriel
Shall we have such a day as the twelfth of Abriel.
Reflection on Relationships
Platonic?
Bubonic
!
66
Scram, Lion!
Gentlemen, I give you the British Empire,
And the late Queen Victoria, by no means a
vempire.
And the Heir Apparent of the House of Windsor
And the speculations as to what his sindsor
And all the photos of the Pincess Lillybet
And a couple of operas by Sullivan and Gillybet.
Britain and Britons I far from excoriate,
I deeply admire their Poet Laureate,
I prefer an evening with Edgar Wallace
To a front-row seat at the Ziegfeld Fallace,
I think Miss Lillie is quite a card
And I'm all agog over Scotland Yard.
I'm impressed by squires who run for Parliament
And serve their country for a modest emolument.
Yes, I praise their peers and I praise their com-
moners.
Their fogs and faces and other phenomenas;
I'm even sufficiently flibberty-gibberty
To praise their premise of personal liberty.
But bo, I'll hand you the whole shebang
When they start to sling Amurrican slang,
And calculate you will lose your lunch
When you glim an Amurrican joke in Punch
For Piccadilly is less spectacular
67
Scram,, Lion!
Than its torture of Transatlantic vernacular.
Then, Bravo, Britain ! and Long Live George
!
Away with Yorktown and Valley Forge;
I've a spilth of open-mouthed admiration
For a top-hole pukka sahib nation
But nix on our chatterit can't be did.
Twenty-three, skiddoo
!
Yours,
The Candy Kid.
68
Reflection on the Passage
of
Time, Its
Inevitahility and Its Quirks
In nineteen hunderd
Jev/nes pies wondered.
59
The Cow
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk;
And but for Bossy, Walker-Gordon
Would long ago have crossed the Jordan.
60
The Cobra
This creature fills its mouth with venum
And walks upon its duodenum.
He who attempts to tease the cobra
Is soon a sadder he, and sobra.
61
Remember the Old Folks at Hom^e
When people start saying Hurrah for such and
such a date you generally find
That they have an axe to grind.
For instance, Mother's Day (formerly May 2nd)
comes in very handy
For those who support themselves by the sale of
flowers and candy,
And June 20th, now better known as Father's
Dayor, in the friendher ads,
As Dad's

Is Oh boy what a break

For those who cigars and neckties do make.
And Christmas and Easter and St. Valentine's
Day, and, for all I know, the day of St.
Thomas,
Are also given over to commerce
Till indeed it would take a Chicago detective
To open a newspaper on any day of the year
without finding it a Day invented by some
live-wire account executive.
Well, this scheme may have coerced a lot of people
who would otherwise have saved their money
into becoming consumers
But I shall continue to regard it as one of Civiliza-
tion's ugliest tumors,
CS
Remember the Old Folks at Hom
And I hope that all the advertising agents who
had anything to do with putting it o'er
Get all the diseases and things that they have
taken out of the bathroom and put into the
full pages of magazines with a million cir-
culation or more.
64
Reflection on the Fallibility
of
Nemesis
He who is ridden by a conscience
Worries about a lot of nonscience;
He without benefit of scruples
His fun and income soon quadruples.
M
Such an Old Theme, But Such Fresh Distress
There is a woman

There is a vulture
Who circles above
The carcass of culture

I beg your pardon,

Mrs. Dora Schultz Malone Le Baron Van Arden,
I've a rush of work, such a devastating plight,
I'm afraid that dinner's out of the question to-
night.
Roumanians and Serbs
Get on my nerbs
;
Pagliacci
Russians,
Romanoff repercussions,
Croats and Slovenes
And London epicenes

Oh Lummy
!
They do things to my tummy.
Dear Mrs. Van Arden,
I do beg your pardon,
But you have had Mr. Malone (number one), Mr.
Le Baron (number two), and Mr. Van A.
(number three).
67
Such an Old Theme, But Such Fresh Distress
And now your Balkans and things; surely you
don't need me.
Mrs. Van Arden is fond of books

Sometimes at them she even looks.

There's a frightfully clever young poet coming
next week

Oh, quite, quite unique.

Very good looking, but not above his station;
He's invented a different kind of punctuation.
And the following week a rather thrilling Pole,
Brutal, my dear, but a solid mass of soul.
You'll never forget
The marvellous way he plays the flageolet

There's a spirituality about the Slav

That none of us Anglo-Saxons seems to have.
In Mrs. Van Arden's hair Titian is now the deter-
minant
;
Mrs. Van Arden's smile and her youth are equally
permanent.
She is young, she is young, she is young. Only a
cad would note
The hands and the throat.
It's no fault of hers that my flesh begins to creep
At sight of a spring sheep.
Oh Mrs. Van Arden,
I beg, I heg your pardon.
68
Such
an
Old
Theme,
But
Such Fresh
Distress
I raust
wrench
myself
away
from
your
charming
salon
;
My
genius

you know
my
genius
whispers
"Allons."
69
LAnes to Be Muttered Through Clenched
Teeth and Quite a Lot
of
Lather,
in the Country
*'HarJc! Hark! The lark at Heaven^s gate sings

*'
Shut up, lark!
"And Fhcehus *gins arise

'*
Sit down, Phoehus, before I knock you down!
Larks barking like beagles around a person's
windows,
Sun-gods sneaking in at dawn and socking a
person in the eye

Why doesn't Nature go back to the Orient where

it came from and bother the Mohammedans
and Hindows
Instead of turning night into day every morning
in Westchester County, N. Y.?
I speak for a community of commuters who toil for
a pittance per diem

Who spend
12^%
of their waking lives on the
N. Y., N. H., & H.
71
To Be Muttered Through Clenched Teeth
Who would swap a billion shiny new a.m.'s for a
second-hand p.m.

I do not presume to speak for bankers such as Mr.

Morgan and Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Bache.
Why do we submit to a regime so tyrannical and
despotic ?
Why don't we do something about getting a lot
less dawn and a lot more dusk.?
I mean seriously, without any cracks about six
months of night in the Arctic

Because I think if it could be arranged life would

be not nearly so grotusque.
Daybreak is one of the greatest disadvantages of
living under the solar system:
It means having to get up almost the very minute
you go to bed,
And bathe and shave and scrub industriously at
your molar system
And catch a train and go to the office and try to
earn some bread.
Come, let us leave the flowers and the birds and the
beasts to their sun-worship,
All of us human beings ought to be more skeptical
than a flower or a bird or a beast,
r
To Be Muttered Through Clenched Teeth
And a little serious thought should convince us
that sunshine is sometliing to unworship
And that if we want to salute the daybreak we
should say not "Goodie goodie" but "Ah
Cheest."
7S
The Anti-Saloon Leaguer
The anti's tone
Is pugilistic;
His uppercut,
A quick statistic;
He juggles charts
And graphs and jiggers;
Ignores the facts
And quotes the figgers.
I do not envy
Your position
If you oppose
His holy mission.
74
The Anti-Prohibitionist
The anti's tone
Is pugilistic;
His uppercut,
A quick statistic;
He juggles charts
And graphs and jiggers;
Ignores the facts
And quotes the figgers.
I do not envy
Your position
If you oppose
His holy mission.
75
Encyclopedia Britannica
Could I write as witty
As Noel Coward
By self-esteem
I should be devoward
;
I should strut like a newly
Painted peacock
Could I vrrite. as funny
As Stephen Leacock;
Could I write as delightful
As A. P. Herbert
I should sip champagne
And nibble at sherbert;
I should glory in being
The poor man's solace
Could I write as scary
As Edgar Wallace.
But I'd stand in a corner
And mutter "Beastly!"
Could I talk as tactless
As J. B. Priestley.
76
Reflection
on the Physical Tastes
of
Our
Intellectual Betters
In even the best-endowed university both sports
clothes and decollete
Look quite odd when worn by the wives of mem-
bers of the faculty.
Yes, lowbrows are fencier
Than the intelligentsia.
77
From a Manhattan Tomb
I KNOW that a little verse is a versicle but I don't
know if a little phrase is a phrasicle
But I do know that at the moment I feel too too
alas and alackadaisicle.
What though around me is the hustle and bustle
of a great city at its labors ?
What though I am hemmed in by the most indus-
trious and ingenious kind of neighbors?
What though 227 miles away our President is
striving like anytliing to restore prosperity?
What though a great deal of good is being done
day and night by Organized Cherity?
What though young people are joining forever or
parting forever with each tick of the clock?
What though Mr. Belloc admires Mr. Chesterton
or Mr. Chesterton admires Mr. Belloc?
What though to produce the Sunday papers
thousands of square miles of Canada are
deforested ?
What though in an attempt to amuse the public
thousands of writers and actors and things
are utterly exhorested?
78
From a Manhattan Tomb
What though young humans are getting born and
old humans are getting deceased and middle-
aged humans are getting used to it?
What though a Bronxville husband has discovered
that he can put the baby to sleep by reading
Proust to it?
All these things may be of great moment to those
who are concerned with them in any way,
But how are they going to help me to get through
the day?
For I have had to eat luncheon while I was still
sorry I had eaten breakfast and I shall have
to eat dinner wliile I am still sorry I ate
luncheon
And my spirit has been put through the third
degree and thrown into a very dark dank
dismal duncheon.
Why do people insist on bringing me anecdotes
and allegories and alcohol and food?
Why won't they just let me sit and brood?
Why does the population swirl around me with
vivacious violence
When all I want to do is sit and suffer in siolence?
Everybody I see tries to cheer me up
And I wish they would stup.
79
Malice Domestic
A Mrs. Shepherd of Danbury, Conn.,
She tried to steal our cook,
She may have thought to stay anon.,
But now she's in a book!
OhMrs.Shepherd,
OH! Mrs. SHEPHERD!
I'll hunt you hither, I'll hunt you yon.
Did you really hope to remain anon.?
Didn't you know the chance you took
Making a pass at a poet's cook.?
Oh, Mrs.
S. of the Nutmeg State,
No human shame she knew,
Her carnal appetites to sate.
Our home she walked into.
OhMrs.Shepherd
!
OH! Mrs. SHEPHERD!
By hook and by crook and by telephone
You attempted to rape us of our own.
You ruptured the laws of God and man
And made a pass at Matilda Ann.
Then here's a health to Matilda Ann
Whose soups are soundly peppered.
Whose commonest meats are godlike feats,
81
Malice Domestic
Who resisted Mrs. Shepherd.
ButOhMrs.Shepherd
!
OH! Mrs. SHEPHERD!
You ruptured the laws of man and God
When in our kitchen you softly trod.
You tiptoed hither, you tiptoed yon,
You fondly hoped to remain anon..
But householders aU, the nation over,
Shall hear the name of the lawless rover
Who by telephone and by hook and crook
Attempted to alienate our cook.
Go back to your home in Danbury, Conn.,
And carry this curse t6 ponder on:
I hope that your soup is washy-wishy.
Your salad sandy, your butter fishy,
Your sirloins fried and your whitebait boiled.
Your omelets burned and your sherberts oiled.
Till all your neighbors in Danbury, Conn.,
As they watch the Shepherds grow feeble and
wan.
Say "She should have thought of the chance she
took,
Making a pass at a poet's cook."
82
The Roach
I HASTE to hymn the humble roach
Whom other poets won't approach.
His flickering feet, his apt antennae
Have given great offence to many,
Yet I'd prefer him in my pantry
To Mr. Barrett or Elmer Gantry.
83
The Phoeriix
Deep in the study
Of eugenics
We find that fabled
Fowl, the Phoenix.
The wisest bird
As ever was,
Rejecting other
^las and Pas,
It lays one
Q-gg,
Not ten or twelf,
And when it's hatched,
Out pops itself.
85
Without All Due Respect
Mr. Otto Kahn
Is a patron of about every organization there is
except the Ku Klux Klahn.
His fame girdles the globe
And he is very prominent in Kuhn Loeb.
I've often wondered whether he himself can carry
a tune
Ad well as Mr. Loeb and Mr. Kuhn,
And thought that perhaps that if we heard them
harmonize Rolling Down to Rio
We should realize that after all only God can
make a trio.
Be wliich as it may, Mr. Kahn is of the same genus
As Maecenas.
He improves the arts
The way other men improve racing stables, cup
defenders and yarchts.
For he knows that even in such a rarefied art as
opera, plenty of publicity
la a modern necissity
And that one way to capture a ballyhoodlim
Is to Yankeedoodlim,
87
Without All Due Respect
So it's a good gag
Once in a while to Talley round the flag.
Thus all in all he has done as much for the opera
As the South Sea traders have done for copra.
But he has other interests too : in fact, a finger in
every Pi-
Erian Spring in the city of N. Y.
My goodness, he gets a lot done
From sun to sun!
By the middle of the morning I'd probably be
completely worn out and blotto
Were I Kahn, Mr. Otto.
88
The Baby
A BIT of talcum
Is always walcura.
89
Manhattan Monkey
The monkey is
A child of whim;
Ethics mean nothing
Much to him;
His Hfe is full
Of fun and zest;
He turns his critics
With a jest;
A tailor and
A friend or two
Could make him Mayor
Of the zoo.
91
''My Child Is Phlegmatic . ,
"

Anxious Parent
Anxious Parent, I guess you have just never been
around
;
I guess you just don't know who are the happiest
people anywhere to be found;
I guess you just haven't ever been to the Beaux
Arts or Kit Kat or ChoUy Knickerbocker or
Old Guards Ball;
I guess you just haven't had any experience of life
at all.
So you are worried, are you, because your child
is turning out to be phlegmatic?
Forgive me if I seem a trifle unsympathatic.
Why do you want your child to be a flashing,
coruscating gem?
Don't you know the only peace the world can give
lies not in flame but in phlegm?
Don't you know that the people with souls of putty
Are the only people who are sitting prutty?
They never get all worked up at the drop of a
pin or a feather or a hat.
They never go around saying bitterly to them-
selves : "Oh God, did I really do, did I really
say thaiV*
They never boil over when they read about sttool
92
''My Child Is Phlegmatic . .
/*
pigeons getting girls into reformatories by
making treacherous advances;
They never get perfectly futilely harrowed about
Sacco and Vanzetti or Alice Adamses who
don't have good times at dances
;
TJiey never blink an eyelash about colleges that
are going to the dogs because of footbaU
overemphasis
;
They never almost die with indignation when some
colored person is lynched in Natchez or
Memphasis.
No, when they eat they digest their food, and when
they go to bed they get right to sleep
And four phlegmatic angels a
stolid watch over
them keep.
Oh to be phlegmatic, oh to be stolid, oh ^ be
torpid, oh to be calm!
For it is only thus, Anxious Parent, that we can
get through life without a qualm.
93
Reflection
on Steps to Be Taken
The human race is subject to many menaces,
But none, perhaps, so dire as parthenogenesis.
H
Money Is Everything
Better a parvenu
Living luxuriously on Park Arvenu
Than a Schuyler or a Van Rensselaer
Living inexpensselaer.
Oh to Be Odd!
Hypochondriacs
Spend the winter at the bottom of Florida and
the summer on top of the Adirondriacs.
You go to Paris and live on champagne wine and
cognac
If you're a dipsomognac.
If you're a manic-depressive
You don't go anywhere where you won't be
cheered up, and people say "There, there!"
if your bills are excessive.
But you stick around and work day and night
and night and day with your nose to the
sawmill
If you're nawmill.
97
Pajamas, Huh?
or. Dresses Were So Ntce
Sure, deck your limbs in floppy panta;
Yours are the limbs, my sweeting.
You look divine as you advance

Have you seen yourself retreating?

99
The
Judge
This is a Judge.
Boy, can he budge!
99
Ha! Original Sin!
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity
That's any fun at all for humanity.
Food is vanity, so is drink,
And undergarments of gossamer pink,
P. G. Wodehouse, and long vacations,
Going abroad, and rich relations.
The kind of engagements j^ou want to keep,
A hundred honors, and twelve hours' sleep.
Vanities allOh Worra, worra!
Rooted in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity
That's any fun at all for humanity.
That is the gist of the prophet's case,
From Bishop Cannon to Canon Chase.
The prophets chant and the prophets chatter,
But somehow it never seems to matter,
For the world hangs on to its ancient sanity
And orders another round of vanity.
Then Hey! for Gomorrah! and Nonny! for
Sodom
!
Marie ! the Chanel model for Modom
!
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