FOOLING AROUND

Old Griggins the grocer, has gone to the dump, and people who knew him

say he was a chump; his prospects were fine when he opened his store,

and customers brought him their bullion and ore, and bought his

potatoes and pumpkins and peas, his milk and molasses, his chicory,

cheese. But soon they went elsewhere to blow in their plunks, for

Griggins turned out such a foolish old hunks; while others were

rustling for shilling and pound, old Griggins the grocer kept fooling

around.

He stood in the alley and ranted and tore, debating the tariff with

some one next door; he roasted the tariff on spigots and spoons while

customers waited to purchase some prunes; he argued that congress is

out for the pelf, and left his trade palace to wait on itself. And

patrons got huffy, their molars they ground, while Griggins the grocer

was fooling around.

Old Griggins kept cases on sprinters and pugs, and talked of their

records, while people with jugs were wishing he'd fill them with syrup

or oil, and cut out his yarns, which were starting to spoil; he'd talk

about Jeffries or Johnsing or Gotch for forty-five minutes or more by

the watch, while customers jingled their coin in his store, and waited

and waited, and sweated and swore. At last they would leave his old

joint on the bound, while Griggins the grocer was fooling around.

The man who would win in these strenuous days must tend to his knitting

in forty-five ways, be eager and hustling, with vim all athrob, his

mind not afield, but intent on his job. The sheriff will come with his

horse and his hound to talk with the man who keeps fooling around.