Part 3 (2/2)

You men, selfish creatures, think all of the care Of living and keeping yourselves in existence, Is due to your own daily labor, and share, From breakfast to dinner of business persistance; While woman is either a plaything or drudge, According to station of wealth or position, Which men help along with a word or a nudge To heaven high up or low down to perdition.

But what was I saying of a world free from care, Of eating and drinking and dresses to wear?

Where women by husbands are never tormented, And never asked money where husbands dissented?

And never see others, their rivals, in fas.h.i.+on ahead, And never have doctors--a woman's great dread-- And nothing, I hope, like my own indigestion, To torment and starve them, as this one does me, And keep them from sipping--forgive the suggestion-- The nectar etherial they drink for their tea.

Mrs. Merdle Suggesteth that Dinner being finished, the Gentlement will Smoke. In the meantime, she Discourseth.

”Now Merdle--now Colonel--I know you are waiting.

And thinking my talking to eating's a bar, Still hoping, by tasting, my appet.i.te sating, Will give you the license to smoke a cigar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”WILL GIVE YOU THE LICENSE TO SMOKE A CIGAR”]

Well then, I've done now, and hope too you've dined, As well as down town where you dine for a s.h.i.+lling, At Taylor's, or Thompson's, or one of the kind, Where mortals are flocking each day for their filling; Or else at the Astor where bachelors quarter, Where port holes for windows give light to the room, Far out of the region of Eve's every daughter, So high they are stuck up away toward the moon.

Though as for the 'stuck up' no walls built of brick, Or granite, or marble, or dirty red sand, Could stick up a man who himself's but a stick, An inch above where he would naturally stand.

To witness the truth of this final a.s.sertion, I call you to witness the sticks at the door, Where they make it a daily, a 'manly' diversion, To ogle each woman, and sometimes do more, Who pa.s.ses the hotel that's named by a saint, Where boorish bad manners give room for complaint.

Where idlers and loafers, with gamblers a few, Make up for the nonce the St. Nicholas crew.

The 'outside barbarians,' I freely confess, Who ogle our faces and ogle our dress, Who spit where we walk as dirty a puddle As bipeds can make when their brains are 'a muddle,'

Do not prove the inside is as dirty as they are, Or else the G.o.ds help all the ladies who stay there.

Why any prefer in a hotel to stay, Instead of a house of their choosing to own, Is just to avoid all the trouble, they say, That servants to give us are certainly p.r.o.ne, I'm sure if a tyranny more terrible prevails, In Austria or other despotic domain, My memory where most certainly fails, That servants and milliners over us gain, Just here in New York, and the more is the pity, Where Wood is the Mogul that governs the city.

Mrs. Merdle, having ”Nibbled a Little” for two Hours at Dinner, retireth from the Table unsatisfied.

”Impatient--oh yes--just the way with you men!

I never have time to half finish my eating Ere Merdle is done; such a fidget is then, He'd starve me I think rather 'n miss of a meeting Where brokers preside o'er the fate of the stocks, As Pales presided o'er shepherds and flocks.

Now while you are smoking--what nonsense and folly-- I'll go to my room.--don't say No, for I must-- Put on a new dress, with a.s.sistance of Molly, And then with a little strong tea and a crust, My strength I may hope for a walk will be able As far as the gate, and a very short ride, To give me a relish again for the table-- What else do we live for in this world beside?”

The Poet Moralizeth--He Discourseth to those who Gorge and Complain.

Oh! Kitty Malone--Mrs. Merdle 'tis now-- Was there ever on earth than this, greater folly?

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