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+Project Gutenberg's The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor, by Wallace Irwin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor
+
+Author: Wallace Irwin
+
+Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5332]
+Last Updated: August 22, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE SONNETS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Schwan
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LOVE SONNETS OF A CAR CONDUCTOR
+
+By Wallace Irwin
+
+ Author of
+ The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum
+ The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, Junior
+ Etc.
+
+
+
+ With a harmless and instructive Introduction
+ by
+ Wolfgang Copernicus Addleburger
+
+ Professor of Literary Bi-Products
+ University of Monte Carlo
+
+
+Paul Elder & Company
+
+San Francisco and New York
+
+ Muse of my native land,
+ am I inspir'd?
+ --Keats.
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1908
+
+by Paul Elder and Company
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Science may conquer the stars, but it does nothing by jumps. As a
+Scientist, as well as a philosopher, I am accustomed to reaching the
+Transcendental by winding paths. It is characteristic of me that I
+should have consented to preface this remarkable Sonnet Cycle only after
+supreme deliberation, and that I should at last have determined to speak
+in behalf of the Car Conductor for the following reasons:
+
+1. As a Botanist I am fascinated by the phenomenon of Genius flourishing
+from bud to flower, from flower to seed.
+
+2. As a Psychologist I am anxious to establish once and for all, both by
+plano-inductive and precoordinate systems of logic, the Status of Slang.
+
+What position does Slang occupy in the thought of the world? Let us turn
+to Zoology for an answer.
+
+No traces of Slang may be found among mollusks, crustaceans or the lower
+invertebrates. Slang is not common to vertebrate fishes or to whales,
+seals, reptiles or anthropoid apes--in a word, slang-speaking is
+nowhere prevalent among lower animals. It may, then, be definitely and
+clearly asserted that Slang is the natural, logical expression of the
+Human Race. If Man, then, is the highest of created mammals, is not his
+natural speech (Slang) the highest of created languages? It is generally
+conceded that Literature is the most exalted expression of Language.
+Would not the Literature, then, which employs the highest of created
+languages (Slang) be the supreme Literature of the world?
+
+By such logical, irrefutable, inductive steps have I proven not only the
+Status of Slang, but the literary importance of these Sonnets which it
+is at once my scientific duty and my esthetic pleasure to introduce.
+
+The twenty-six exquisite Sonnets which form this Cycle were written,
+probably, during the years 1906 and 1907. Their author was William Henry
+Smith, a car conductor, who penned his passion, from time to time, on
+the back of transfer-slips which he treasured carefully in his hat (1).
+We have it from no less an authority than Professor Sznuysko that the
+Car Conductor usually performed these literary feats in public, writing
+between fares on the rear platform of a Sixth Avenue car. Smith's
+devotion to his Musa Sanctissima was often so hypnotic, I am told, that
+he neglected to let passengers on and off--nay, it is even held by some
+critics that he occasionally forgot to collect a fare. But be it said to
+his undying honor that his Employers never suffered from such
+carelessness, for it was the custom of our Poet to demand double fares
+from the old, the feeble and the mentally deficient.
+
+Even as the illimitable ichor of star-dust, the mysterious Demiurge of
+the Universe, keeps the suns and planets to their orbitary revolutions,
+so must environment mark the Fas and Nefas of Genius. Plato's Idea of
+the Archetypal Man was due, perhaps, as much to the serene weather
+conditions of Academe as to the marvelous mentality of Plato. What had
+Job eaten for breakfast that he should have given utterance to his
+magnificent Lamentation? Was he the discoverer of Human Sorrow or the
+pioneer of Human Dyspepsia?
+
+It is not altogether radical on my part, then, for me to assert that
+many of the stylistic peculiarities found in these Sonnets are
+attributable to the locale of their inspiration the rear platform of a
+Sixth Avenue car. One can plainly hear the jar and jounce of the
+elliptical wheels, the cry, "Step lively!" the six o'clock stampede, the
+lament of the strap-hanging multitude in such lines as these:
+
+ "Three days with sad skidoo have came and went,
+ Yet Pansy cometh nix to ride with me.
+ I rubber vainly at the throng to see
+ Her golden locks--gee! such a discontent!
+ Perhaps she's beat it with some soapy gent--"
+
+Where are lines like these to be found in the Italian of Petrarch? Where
+has Tasso uttered an impassioned confession to resemble this:
+
+ "But when I ogle Pansy in the throng
+ My heart turns over twice and rings a gong"?
+
+Of the human or personal record of William Henry Smith very little has
+been discovered. Looking over the books of the Metropolitan Street
+Railway I unearthed the following entry:
+
+"Nov. 1, 1907:"
+
+"W. H. Smith, conductor, discharged."
+
+"Remarks:--Car No. 21144, William Smith, conductor, ran into large
+brewery truck at So. E. cor. Sixth Ave. It is reported that Smith, to
+the neglect of his duty, was reading poetry from a book called 'Sonnets
+of de Heredia' at the time of the accident. Three Italians were slightly
+injured by the accident, and Ethelbert Pangwyn, an actor starring in
+'The Girl and the Idiot,' a musical comedy, was killed."
+
+"Smith was held for manslaughter, but Judge O' Rafferty, who had seen
+'The Girl and the Idiot,' discharged the defendant, averring that the
+killing of Pangwyn did not constitute a crime."
+
+What, then, has become of this minstrel who sang the Minnelieder of the
+Car-barns? Like Homer, like Omar, like Sappho, like Shakespeare, he is a
+Voice singing out of the mists. He was but a Name to his employers; and
+his friends, if he has friends, remember him not. These Sonnets, written
+neatly on twenty-six violet transfer-slips, were discovered, together
+with a rejection blank from a leading magazine, in the Dead Letter
+office. According to the current folk-lore in Harlem and the Bronx,
+Smith is now living in California employed as a brakeman on the Southern
+Pacific Railroad. Some aver that Pansy fell heiress to a sausage
+establishment and moved to Italy with her Poet. Still others maintain
+that Pansy, Gill the Grip and Maxy the Firebug never existed in real
+life--were merely the mind-children of a Symbolist and a dreamer of
+dreams.
+
+To the latter theory I incline at a scholarly angle. This Cycle may be
+taken, perhaps, not so much as a living record of human experience as a
+lofty parable sounding the key-note of all human life. Gill the Grip is
+the Iago, the Mefistofele, the symbolism of a malevolent destiny. Maxy
+the Firebug may be the Poet's interpretation of the Social Unrest, of
+Doubt, of progressive irresponsibility. Would it be going too far, then,
+to say that Pansy stands to us as the symbol of Pan-girlism--as an
+almost Anacreontic yearning for the type? Or may not these Sonnets be
+taken, in a way, as a modern Vita Nuova wherein a Sixth Avenue Alighieri
+calls to his Beatrice and mourns within when,
+
+"Pansy-girl refuses to occur?"
+
+So much for the Poet and his Purpose. Should any one of the readers of
+this Cycle doubt the enduring greatness of the lines, let him consider
+that I, Wolfgang Copernicus Addleburger, have seen fit to introduce them
+to immortality.
+
+
+ (1) Since the salary-books of the Metropolitan Street
+ Railways show, during the year 1906, 182 conductors named
+ Smith in their employ, 38 of whom were named William Smith
+ and 12 William Henry Smith, it is easy for the reader to
+ conceive my task in establishing the identity of our Poet.
+ W. C. A.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LOVE SONNETS OF A CAR CONDUCTOR
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+ Did some one ask if I am on the job?
+ I sure am to the pay-roll with my lay,
+ A hot tabasco-poultice which will stay
+ Close to the ribs and answer throb-to-throb.
+ Here have I chewed my Music from the cob
+ And followed Passion from the get-away
+ Past the big Grand Stand where the Pousse-Café
+ Christens my Muse as Jennie-on-the-Daub.
+
+ Hark ye, all marks who break the Pure Fool Law,
+ How I, the Windy Wonder of the Age,
+ Have fought the Tender Passion to a draw
+ And got my mug upon the Sporting Page,
+ Since Love and I collided at the curve
+ And left me with a Dislocated Nerve.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+
+ Am I in bad? upon the tick of nine
+ Today the Pansy got aboard my ship
+ And sprung the Trans-Suburban for a trip.
+ Say, she's the shapely ticket pretty fine!
+ Next to her pattern Anna Held looks shine
+ And Lilly Russell doesn't know the grip.
+ But oh! she's got a deep ingrowing tip
+ That she must shy at honks like yours and mine.
+
+ I says to her, "Fare, please!" out loud like that,
+ But she pipes, "Fade, Bill, fade! you pinched my fare."
+ That get-back tripped your Oswald to the mat,
+ And yet I yelled, "Cough up here, Golden Hair!"
+ Eh, what? I got the zing from Pansy's orb
+ Which says, "Dry out now, Shorty,--please absorb!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+
+ A True McGlook once handed this to me:
+ When little Bright Eyes cuts the cake for you
+ Count twenty ere you eat the honey-goo
+ Which leads to love and matrimony--see?
+ A small-change bunk what's bats on spending free
+ Can't four-flush when he's paying rent for two.
+ The pin to flash on Cupid is 'Skidoo!'
+ The call for Sweet Sixteen is "23."
+
+ But say! Life looks goshawful on the stretch
+ Without a Ray of Sunshine in my flat,
+ With no one there to call me "Handsome wretch,"
+ And dust the fuzz and mildew off my hat.
+ If she was waiting at the church tonight
+ You'd find me there with wedding-bells all right!
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+
+ Pansy got on at Sixteenth Street last night,
+ And some one flipped a handspring in my heart.
+ She snickered once, "Oh look, here's Mr. Smart!"
+ Was I there Henry Miller? guess you're right!
+ I did the homerun monologue as bright
+ As any scrub that ever learned the art.
+ I plum forgot the signals, "Stop" and "Start!"
+ And almost wrecked the car once--guess I might!
+
+ I took one Mike six blocks beyond the place
+ He flagged for his. He got as red as ham
+ And yodelled through his apopleptic face,
+ "I think you're dips!" I says, "I know I am--"
+ When Pansy starts to send a wireless wave
+ She simply just can't make her eyes behave!
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+
+ On every car there's always one fat coot
+ What goes to sleep and dreams he's paid his fare.
+ And when you squeak he gets the Roosevelt glare,
+ And hoots, "I won't be dickied with--I'll shoot!"
+ Then all the passengers get in and root.
+ Loud cheers of, "Put him off!" and "Make him square!"
+ Till Mr. Holdfast with an injured air
+ Pungles his nick and ends the bum dispute.
+
+ It's ever thus on this here rolling ball--
+ You've got to pop your coin to ride so far.
+ The yap that kicks and rings a deadhead call
+ Must either spend or else get off the car.
+ On Life's Street Railway wealth may cut the cheese,
+ But Death rings up and says, "Step lively, please!"
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+
+ "There'll be some fancy steps at Car-Barn Hall,"
+ Gilly the Gripman pipes me off today,
+ "This won't be any gabberfest--for say!
+ Nix but the candy goes to this here ball.
+ You've got to flash your union card, that's all,
+ To circulate the maze with Tessie May,
+ And all the Newport push out Harlem way
+ Will slip on wax till sunrise,--do you call?"
+
+ I told him that I pulled the gong for that!
+ If Pansy would be there 'twas was Me for It.
+ I'd burnish up my buttons, mop my hat,
+ Polish my pumps and blow in for a hit.
+ "All to the Fritz," says Gill, "if you get jolly
+ Around the curves--you're apt to slip your trolley!"
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+
+ The lemon-wagon rumbled by today
+ And dropped me off a sour one--are you on?
+ I went and gave the boss a cooney con
+ About the Car-Barn Kick--what did he say?
+ "Back to your platform, Clarence light and gay,
+ Jingle the jocund fares, nor think upon
+ The larks of Harry Lehr or Bath House John,
+ For they are It and you are still on pay."
+
+ So I have been sky-prancing all night long
+ A-dragging car-conductors and their queens
+ Clad in their laughing-robes to join the throng
+ That makes the Car-Barn function all the beans.
+ And say! I had a brainstorm just last trip
+ When I took Pansy's fare from Gill the Grip.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+
+ At Midnight when I got a gasp for lunch
+ I mushed it for the Car-Barns just to lamp
+ And see the Creamy Charlies do the vamp
+ And swing their Fancy Floras in the crunch.
+ I piped my Pansy in among the bunch
+ And asked her would she mix it with the Champ,
+ Wouldn't she like to join me in a stamp?
+ She saw me first and stopped me with a punch.
+
+ I saw her hook a loop with Gill the Grip,
+ With Pinky Smith and Handsome Hank she heeled;
+ With all the dossy bunks she took a skip
+ Each time the German tune-professor spieled.
+ But nix with me the lightsome toe she sprung--
+ As Caesar said to Cassius, "Ouch! I'm stung!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+
+ Forsooth that was a passing lusty clout
+ That chopped me off with Pansy--don't you fret!
+ There's quite a blaze inside my garret yet,
+ And all the Dipper Corps can't put it out.
+ Gilly the Grip's a pretty ricky tout--
+ Under the old rag-rug for him, you bet,
+ When I put on my Navajo and get
+ One license to unloose my soul and shout.
+
+ Perhaps he thinks I'm old Molasses Freight
+ Sidetracked at Pokey Pond and filled with prunes
+ Waiting for Congress to appropriate
+ The nuggets draped around me in festoons.
+ Wait till I ticket Pansy, then I guess
+ Slow Freight will switch to Honeymoon Express!
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+
+ Today I gave a serenade to Gill;
+ I says, "To put it pleasant you're a screech,
+ Your smile would shoo the seagulls off the beach,
+ Your face would give Vesuvius a chill.
+ You're just what Mr. Shakespeare calls 'a pill
+ Trying to keep company with a peach.'
+ Now, if you want to answer with a speech,
+ Open your trap at once, or else lie still."
+
+ But when I handed Gill the Grip this cluster
+ He simply clamped his language-mill down tight,
+ Strangled his guff and acted rather fluster
+ Although I'm sure I spoke to him polite.
+ I guess that Mr. Gilly ain't the kind
+ That understands when people talk refined.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+
+ Three days with sad skidoo have came and went,
+ Yet Pansy cometh nix to ride with me.
+ I rubber vainly at the throng to see
+ Her golden locks--gee! such a discontent!
+ Perhaps she's beat it with some soapy gent--
+ Perhaps she's promised Gill the Grip to be
+ His No. 1 till Death tolls "23!"
+ While I am Outsky in the supplement.
+
+ Now and anon some Lizzie flags the train
+ And I, poor dots, cry, "Rapture, it is her!"
+ Yet guess again--my hope is all in vain
+ And Pansy girl refuses to occur.
+ If this keeps up I think I'll finish swell
+ Among the jabbers in a padded cell.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+
+ My Trolley hikes to Harlem p.d.q.,
+ And picks up pikers all along the beat.
+ At six o'clock the aisles are full of feet,
+ The straps with fingers, and the entire zoo
+ Boils on the platform with a mad huroo
+ Reckless as Bronx mosquitoes after meat.
+ The widow stands, the fat man gets the seat
+ And Satan smiles like Foxy M. Depew.
+
+ And as we hikes along I thinks, thinks I,
+ "The human race is like the ocean foam,
+ Roaring and discontented, peevish, fly--"
+ Say, why in blazes don't they stay to home?
+ This travel-sickness is a danger which
+ Keeps hoboes poor and corporations rich.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+
+ Today I piped my future Ma-in-law.
+ She got aboard my Pullman and she scared
+ Three babies into fits the way she glared.
+ Rattle my baggage if I ever saw
+ A cracker-box to equal Mother's jaw,
+ A hardwood-finish face all nailed and squared.
+ She ossified the gripman when she stared--
+ And me? Well, I was overcame with awe.
+
+ But, being Pansy's Ma, 't was up to me
+ To hand her something pit-a-pat and swell,
+ And so I says, "Hello, Queen Cherokee!
+ What ho! for Pansy? hope she's feeling well."
+ And Ma responds, a trifle tart but game,
+ "She minds her bizness--hope you feel the same."
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+
+ I don't think Mother chalked me out to win,
+ To be the steady of her darling child.
+ She thinks I am a kick-up, something wild,
+ And no sweet girl should wear my college pin.
+ She thinks I'm some too piffly with my chin
+ And my soft prattle simply gets her riled.
+ I've lost my keys with her, to put it mild,
+ I don't belong, because I am not In.
+
+ Say how, with such an iceberg on the track,
+ Can I conduct my car to married bliss?
+ I hoped that I could whistle Pansy back,
+ And lo! I got a frostbite off of this!
+ I'd wrastle Death for Her, I'd fight her Pa,--
+ But stab me if I'll syrup to her Ma!
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+
+ E'en as I stood with cobwebs in my tower
+ A candy vision came and flagged the boat--
+ Give forty rah-rah-rahs! O joy, O gloat!
+ 'Twas Pansy like a fairy in a bower
+ Warbling, "Hi, stop the car!" With all my power
+ I yanked the bell. My brain was all afloat,
+ My heart cut pin-wheels, stole a base at throat,
+ Sang "Tammany"--and knighthood was in flower.
+
+ I helped her on. My shoes were full of feet.
+ I says, "How's Ma?" She answers, "Going some."
+ I doffed my lid and ventured to repeat
+ The breeze had put the weather on the bum.
+ Then she replied, not seeming sore or vexed,
+ "It may not be so punk on Sunday next."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+
+ The Sinful Rich go whizzing by all day
+ In wealthy wagons, looking pert and swell;
+ They get the ride, the Commons get the smell
+ And full of thought and microbes wend their way.
+ Maxy the Firebug says that Mammon's sway
+ Is stringing Virtue to a fare-ye-well,
+ But wait, he says, till Labor with a yell
+ Soaks Mam a crack forninst the vertebray.
+
+ The Rich, says Max, are simply dips and yeggs
+ That lift the headlight beads from yaps like us;
+ They pinch your pie, sew up our ham and eggs
+ And leave us minus all that they are plus.
+ The world, says Max, belongs to me and Bill
+ And Mrs. Casey--whoa! let's roll a pill!
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+
+ At Mrs. Casey's hunger-killing shop
+ Whither I hie thrice daily for my stew,
+ I dream I'm Mr. Waldorf as I chew
+ My prunes or lay my Boston-baked on top.
+ Growley and sinkers, slum and mutton sop,
+ India-rubber jelly known as "glue,"
+ A soup-bone goulash with a spud or two,
+ Clatter below until I signal "Stop!"
+
+ There may be chefs in France or Albany
+ Can knock a poem from a wedge of pie;
+ But just give me a check on Mrs. C.,
+ For rapid-filling ballast, murmurs I.
+ Kings may prefer some tasty wads of hash,
+ But they don't feed at fifteen cents per crash!
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+
+ Pansy and me for Coney Sunday noon
+ To see a perfect lady bump the bumps;
+ We rubbered at the lions with the chumps
+ And took the Wellman special to the moon.
+ She asks me, "Dance?" I answers, "Just as soon,"
+ And so we clutched and whirled into the gumps,
+ But every time I went to stir my stumps
+ They stuck like gum-drops to a macaroon.
+
+ "I could die dancing, Danny!" murmurs she.
+ (I gambolled on her corns, she hollered, "Don't!")
+ "I could die dancing also" (this from me),
+ "But if you'll pass me up, I guess I won't."
+ Just then some lemon-sport observed my glide
+ And warbled, "Slide, you frozen chicken, slide!"
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+
+ I next sprung Pansy for a four-bit feed--
+ It was a giddy tax, but what care I?
+ We shot the bill-of-fare from soup to pie
+ And lemonade (that cost an extra seed).
+ "You're the cute plunge," says Pans', and I agreed
+ That at a spenderfest I wasn't shy,--
+ That when it came to rolling nickels by,
+ Willie the Cowboy was a perfect bleed.
+
+ She said that Thomas Lawson on a lark
+ Would faint away to see the way I blew;
+ She said I'd be the whizz in Central Park,
+ And Ready Cash to me seemed very few.
+ I asked her, Did she need a Valentine?
+ And she responded, "You're the pink for mine!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+
+ We took the iron-clad wave-tub home at ten,
+ And as we sat conversing on the deck
+ A certain Hester-street spaghetti-neck
+ Pipes through the darkness, "Who's yer ladyfren'?"
+ There might have been a hoe-down there and then
+ (That war-ship never came so near a wreck);
+ The dog-eye boy got just as pale as heck
+ And made a duck behind the trenches, when--
+
+ Pansy boiled up and clamped me by a flip.
+ "Nixie the kindergarten!" murmurs she.
+ "Gents," I replied out loud, "Get off the ship
+ And walk, or else nail down that repartee.
+ This yard of lace I'm holding, so to speak,
+ Is pinned on tight--or will be in a week."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+
+ A-lopping on a car-barn bench I spied
+ Gilly the Grip, quite recent this p.m.,
+ Just like a lily on a broken stem
+ Or like a Salt Lake buck without a bride.
+ "Chirk, Gilly, chirk!" I says in tones of pride,
+ "Perhaps this unhinged heart is just pro tem.
+ The world is full of pompadours for them
+ That keep their search-lights peeled from side to side."
+
+ But Gill remarked, "Eh, what? Say, I'm so slow
+ I couldn't catch the hour-hand on a clock.
+ I'm simply stationary as they grow;.
+ A lamp-post race could beat me round the block.
+ You needn't think you're such an Alfred G.,
+ To motor by a quarry-cart like me!"
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+
+ Next week the wedding-bells won't do a thing,
+ For I'll be there, I guess, to fill the set,
+ And Pansy's Ma, she won't be late, you bet,
+ To see the Reverend Mr. pull the string.
+ Me for a spike-tailed scabbard and a ring,
+ A shell-back shirt, forsooth a peacherette.
+ I'll be the daintiest bridegroom ever yet;
+ Nothing to do but take the count, then--bing!
+
+ Love in a cottage run on union pay--
+ Can Teddy Roosevelt do a sum like that?
+ Two can eat cheap as one, perhaps, but say,
+ You've got to beat a quarter pretty flat
+ To cork three squares, make Little Two Shoes snug
+ And keep the Wolf from chewing up the rug.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+
+ Methinks I'm tagged to join the Worry Club,
+ To chase the fleeting rhino through the gloom,
+ To bag the boodle, trap the wild mazume
+ And scratch for corn when Pansy hollers "Grub!"
+ They say I'll turn as sickly as a chub
+ When on the First, with dull and deadly boom,
+ The Rent comes round and walks into the room,
+ Remarking, "Peel or else file out, you scrub!"
+
+ But when your arms are full of girl and fluff
+ You hide your nerve behind a yard of grin;
+ You'd spit into a wild cat's face or bluff
+ A flock of dragons with a safety pin.
+ Life's a slow skate, but Love's the dopey gum
+ That puts a brewery horse in racing trim.
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+
+
+ Kind reader, when you 'phone don't ask for me
+ Enquiring how a Flossie should be won--
+ There isn't any Rule Book, are you on?
+ And Queenie can't be coaxed by recipee.
+ Some girls like hard-luck music, minor key,
+ Some like the Gas-car Gussie act, hot ton,
+ Others are simply fierce for Jolly John
+ Who loves to make a noise like repartee.
+
+ None but the Nerve, say I, deserves the Fair,
+ And stony hearts can't stand up long to chin.
+ If Willie-on-the-doormat lingers there
+ The chances are he'll be Invited In.
+ Up against Love the Candy Kid is nix;
+ The Porous Plaster wins because it sticks
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor, by
+Wallace Irwin
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE SONNETS ***
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