Familiar Faces Part 5

Now he is haggard, pale and highly-strung, The alien product of some Southern sun.

Who speaks an unintelligible tongue And serves impatient patrons at a run, s.n.a.t.c.hing away their plates before they've done.

Brisk as a bee, and restless as the Ocean, He solves the problem of perpetual motion.

You would not look to him for good advice; To him your choice you never would resign.

He gauges from the point of view of price The rival worth of each respective wine; His tastes, indeed, are frankly Philistine, And, with a mien indifferent or placid, He serves your claret cold and corked and acid.

His is a tragic fate, a dreary lot.

Think sometimes of his troubles, I entreat, Who in a crowded restaurant and hot Walks to and fro on tired and tender feet, Watching his hungry fellow-creatures eat!

What form of earthly hards.h.i.+p could be greater Than that which daily overwhelms the waiter?

XI

THE POLICEMAN

My hero may be daily seen In ev'ry crowded London street; Longsuff'ring, stoical, serene, With huge pontoonlike feet, His boots so stout, so squat, so square, A motor-car might shelter there.

The traffic's cataract he dams, With hands that half obscure the sun, Like monstrous, vast Virginian hams.

A trifle underdone; The while the matron and the maid Pa.s.s safely by beneath their shade.

His courtesy is quite unique, His tact and patience have no end; He helps the helpless and the weak, He is the children's friend; And n.o.body can feel alarm Who clings to his paternal arm.

When foreign tourists go astray In any tangled thoroughfare, Or spinster ladies lose their way,-- The constable is there.

With smile avuncular and bland, He leads them gently by the hand.

He stalks on duty through the night, A bull's-eye lantern at his belt; His m.u.f.fled steps are noiseless quite, His soles unheard--tho' _felt_!

And burglars, when a crib they crack, Are forced to do so from the back.

In far New York the "man in blue"

Is Irish by direct descent.

His bludgeon is intended to Inflict a nasty dent; And if you ask him for advice, He knocks you senseless in a trice.

In Paris he is fierce and small, But tho' he twirls his waxed moustache, The natives heed him not at all.

No more does the _apache_.

And cabmen, when he lifts his palm, Drive over him without a qualm.

The German minion of the law Is stern, inflexible, austere.

His presence fills his friends with awe, The foreigner with fear.

Your doom is sealed if he should pa.s.s And find you walking on the gra.s.s!

But no policeman can compare With London's own partic'lar pet; A martyr he who stands foursquare To ev'ry Suffragette, And when that lady kicks his s.h.i.+ns Or bites his ankles, merely grins.

He may not be as bright, forsooth, As Dr. Watson's famous foil,-- Sherlock, that keen unerring sleuth Immortalised by Doyle, And Patti who, where'er she roams, a.s.serts "There's no Police like Holmes!"

But though his movements, staid and slow, Provide the vulgar with a jest, How true the heart that beats below That whistle at his breast!

How perfect an example he Of what a constable should be!

XII

THE MUSIC-HALL COMEDIAN

When the day of toil is ended, When our labours are suspended, And we hunger for agreeable society, The relentless voice of Pleasure Bids us spend an hour of leisure In a Music-Hall or Palace of Variety, Where to furnish relaxation Ev'ry effort is directed, Tho' the claims of ventilation Have been carefully neglected.

There's an atmosphere oppressive (For the smoking is excessive) In this Temple of conventional hilarity, But the place is scarcely warmer Than the average performer With his stock-in-trade of commonplace vulgarity.

There is nothing wise or witty In the energy he squanders On some quite unworthy ditty Full of dubious "_dooblontonders_."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Music-Hall Comedian]

For the singer labelled "comic"

Is by nature economic- -Al of humour, and avoids originality; Like a drowning man he seizes Upon prehistoric wheezes, Which he honours with a loyal partiality, In accordance with the ruling Of a senseless superst.i.tion Which demands a form of fooling That is hallowed by tradition.

Dressed in feminine apparel, With a figure like a barrel, And a smile of transcendental imbecility, All the humours he discloses Of such things as purple noses Or of matrimonial incompatibility; While the band (who would remind him That it never would forsake him) Keeps a bar or two behind him, But can never overtake him.

Then he gives an imitation Of that mild intoxication Which is chronic in some sections of society, And we learn from his explaining How extremely entertaining And amusing is persistent insobriety; And we realise how funny Are the wives who nag and bicker, While the husbands spend their money Upon alcoholic liquor.

He discusses, slyly winking, The delights of overdrinking, And describes his nightly orgies, which are numerous; How he comes home "full of damp," too, How he overturns the lamp, too, And does other things if possible more humorous.

And we listen _con amore_, While our merriment redoubles, To the truly tragic story Of his dull domestic troubles.

Next he tells us how "the lodger,"

A cantankerous old codger, Asks another person's spouse to come and call for him; How he tumbles from a cas.e.m.e.nt In an attic to the bas.e.m.e.nt, Where the lady very kindly breaks his fall for him; And our peals of happy laughter, As he lands on her umbrella, Grow ungovernable after She has fractured her patella.

'Tis a more polite performance Than "The Macs" and "The O'Gormans,"

Who are artistes of the "knockabout" variety, Or those ladies in chemises Who undress upon trapezes With an almost imperceptible propriety; 'Tis as worthy of encoring As the "Farmyard Imitator,"

And a little bit less boring Than the "Lightning Calculator."

It does not evoke our strictures, Like those dreadful "Living Pictures"

Which the prurient wrote columns to the press about; 'Tis no clever exhibition Like that tedious "Thought Transmission"

Which we all of us disputed more or less about.

But the balderdash and babble Of our too facetious hero, Tho' attractive to the rabble, Send our spirits down to zero.

For we weary of his patter, Growing every moment flatter, On such subjects as connubial infelicity, And we find ourselves protesting Against everlasting jesting On the tragedies of conjugal duplicity.

And we feel desirous very Of imposing _some_ restrictions On the humour that makes merry Over personal afflictions.

Our disgust we cannot bridle When we see some public idol, Who is earning a colossal weekly salary, Having long ign.o.bly pandered To the questionable standard Of intelligence that blooms in pit and gallery.

We are easily contented, And our feelings we could stifle, If the comic man consented Just to raise his tone a trifle.

If he shunned such risky questions As red noses, weak digestions, Drunkards, lodgers, twins and physical deformities; Ceased from casting imputations On his wretched "wife's relations,"

Or from mentioning his "ma-in-law's" enormities; If he didn't sing so badly, And if _only_ he were funny, We would tolerate him gladly, And get value for our money!