A Personal Insult
Young lady in Houston became engaged last summer to one of the famous shortstops of the Texas baseball league.
Last week he broke the engagement, and this is the reason why.
He had a birthday last Tuesday and she sent him a beautiful bound and illustrated edition of Coleridge’s famous poem, “The Ancient Mariner.”
The hero of the diamond opened the book with a puzzled look.
“What’s dis bloomin’ stuff about, anyways?” he said, and read:
It is the Ancient Mariner
And he stoppeth one of three—
The famous shortstop threw the book out the window, stuck out his chin and said:
“No Texas sis can gimme de umpire face like dat. I swipes nine daisy cutters outer ten dat comes in my garden, I do.”
Toddlekins climbed up the long, long stair;
Chubby and fat and round was he;
With rosy cheeks and curling hair,
Jolly and fair and gay was he.
Toddlekins knocked on the office door;
Within at a desk a stern man sat;
Wrote with a pen while a frown he wore,
When he heard on the door a rat-tat-tat.
Toddlekins cried, “Oh please let me in!
I’ve come to see you, the door is fast!”
Oh, voice so soft, it will surely win
The heart of the stern, cold man at last!
But he heeded not the pleading cry
Of Toddlekins out on the lonely stair;
And Toddlekins left with a sorrowful sigh,
Toddlekins round, and chubby and fair,
Oh, man so stem, when you stand and plead
At the door of your Father’s house on high;
What if he, merciless, pay no heed;
Pitiless, turns from your helpless cry!
But the man wrote on with a stony stare;
He was an editor, poor and ill;
And Toddlekins, chubby and round and fair,
Was a butcher that brought a big meat bill.