He seized on Mr. Romeo Jones In Graeco-Roman style; He got what they call a grapevine lock On that leading juvenile; He flung him into the orchestra, And the man with the ophicleide, On whom he fell, he just said--well, No matter what--and died!
When once the tiger has tasted blood, And found that it is sweet, He has a habit of killing more Than he can possibly eat.
And thus it was with The Hunky Kid. In his homicidal blindness He lifted his hand against Rosalind, Not in the way of kindness. He chased poor Celia off at L., At R. U. E. Le Beau, And he put such a head upon Duke Fred, In fifteen seconds or so, That never one of the courtly train Might his haughty master know.
And that's precisely what came to pass Because the luckless carles Belonging to the Am. Dram. Ass. Cast The Hunky Kid for Charles!
It was some thirty years ago, An evening calm and red, When a gold-haired stripling stood beside His father's dying-bed. "Attend, my son," the sick man said, "Unto my dying tones, And swear eternal vengeance to The accursed race of Jones. For why? Just nineteen years ago A girl sat by my side, With cheek of rose and breast of snow, My peerless, promised bride. A viper by the name of Jones Came in between us twain; With honeyed words he stole away My loved Belinda Jane. For he was rich and I was poor, And poets all are stupid Who feign the god of Love is not Cupidity, but Cupid. Perchance 'tis well, for had I wed That maid of dark-brown curls, You had not been, or been, instead Of boy, a pair of girls. Now listen to me, Walter Smith; Hie to yon plumber bold, An thou would'st ease my dying pang, His 'prentice be enrolled. For Jones has houses many on The fashionable squares, And thou, perchance, may'st be called in To see to the repairs. Think on thy father's ravished love. Recall thy father's ills, Remember this, the death-bed oath, Then, make out Jones's bills."
Young Walter's to the plumber gone. A boy with smut on nose, Furnace and carpet-sack in hand, With the journeyman he goes. Now grown a journeyman himself, In grimy hand he gripes A candle-end, and 'neath the sink Explores the frozen pipes. His furnace portable he lights With smoking wads of news- Papers, and smiles to see within The pot the solder fuse. He gives his fiat: "They are froze Down about sixteen feet; If you want water ere July You must dig up the street." "Practical Plumber" now is he, As witnesseth his sign, And ready now to undertake Repairs in any line. One day a housemaid, as he sat At the receipt of biz, Came crying, "Ho, Sir Smith, Sir Smith, Sir Jones's pipes is friz." He girt his apron round his loins, His tools took from the shelf, And to the journeyman he said, "_I'll see to this myself._"