To all the jolly roughnecks and pushers of the pen, a short and pungent
lecture I will give. Just take this bit of doggerel, and read it if
you’re men, and use it as a lesson while you live. If you go to Sam’s on
Sunday, and you meet a smirking guy with commissary silk hose on his
feet, if he smiles from ear to ear, make up your mind to hear a story
that is anything but sweet. He will say I met last night Bill Smith’s
wife, that’s right, an’, say, that woman, she just follers me around,
while poor Bill is all alone, for she never is at home, and any guy can
get her if he’s sound. If your blood is red, my son, you will take and
draw your gun, and aim it at the gizzard of the brute, or you’ll punch
his booby head till he wishes he was dead and make of him a spectacle
that’s cute.
A chump that talks of women is nothing that is human; make up your mind
he’s just a low-down liar, who wouldn’t stand a chance to win a passing
glance from women who just live for men to hire. By the hundreds on the
Zone this class of vultures roam; they are ever on the watch to pick a
flaw; they covet neighbors’ wives who are living decent lives, and to
save their coin they’d break the moral law.
Now I hope you all are wise to the lying, boastful spies, who criticize
their betters in the street, who pretend they’re looking sly and who
wink the other eye at every decent woman that they meet. When some
vulture tries this chaff, just say, “You make me laugh,” and hold him up
to ridicule, the guy; you may bet your bottom dollar ’tis some gink that
doesn’t holler, that gets the precious favors on the sly.