Part 30 (1/2)

”O if a tongue or pen of fire Was mine I could not tell entire What the ensuin' actions was.

When swollered up in darkness' jaws We fit and fit and fit and fit, And everything we felt we hit!

We gouged, we scratched and we pulled hair, And O, what words was uttered there!

And when at last the day dawn came Three hundred Scientists was lame; Two hundred others couldn't stand, They'd been so careless handled, and One thousand at the very least Was spread upon the floor deceased!

'Twere easy to exaggerate, But lies is things I mortal hate.

”Such, friends, is the disaster sad Which has befel the Cal. Acad.

And now the question is of more Importance than it was before: Shall vacancies among us be To idiots threw open free?”

FLEET STROTHER

What! you were born, you animated doll, Within the shadow of the Capitol?

'Twas always thought (and Bancroft so a.s.sures His trusting readers) it was reared in yours.

CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES

THE FOOT-HILL RESORT

a.s.sembled in the parlor Of the place of last resort, The smiler and the snarler And the guests of every sort-- The elocution chap With rhetoric on tap; The mimic and the funny dog; The social sponge; the money-hog; Vulgarian and dude; And the prude; The adiposing dame With pimply face aflame; The kitten-playful virgin-- Vergin' on to fifty years; The solemn-looking sturgeon Of a firm of auctioneers; The widower flirtatious; The widow all too gracious; The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath.

One a.s.sa.s.sin picks the banjo, and another picks his teeth.

AT ANCHOR

The soft asphaltum in the sun; Betrays a tendency to run; Whereas the dog that takes his way Across its course concludes to stay.

THE IN-COMING CLIMATE

Now o' nights the ocean breeze Makes the patient flinch, For that zephyr bears a sneeze In every cubic inch.

Lo! the lively population Chorusing in sternutation A catarrhal acclamation!

A LONG-FELT WANT

Dimly apparent, through the gloom Of Market-street's opaque simoom, A queue of people, parti-s.e.xed, Awaiting the command of ”Next!”

A sidewalk booth, a dingy sign: ”Teeth dusted nice--five cents a s.h.i.+ne.”