• Author: Lockhart, H.P.
• Editor: B-6591
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 2
• Page Number:
• Date: 9 10 1913
• Tags:
• poetry
• printing

WITH THE POETS THE DEVIL'S SOLILOQUY This measly print shop is no place for me: Good manners in this joint don't make no hit. The slang them printers uses—Hully chee!— Would make a Yale professor throw a fit. You bet your life I wouldn't talk the stuff; I never could stand for that kind of guff! Me mudder, too; if ever she got wise That I was usin' slang, she'd bust my slats. So many times she tells me ‘"‘Bat yer eyes, Or ye'll be talking like them Casey brats." Them kids talk slang, but say! I got a hunch They ain't got nothin' on this printer bunch! This mornin' when I first come down to work The foreman says: ‘‘Here, Henry hit the pike, An' git your skates on—don't you dast to shirk; Be back in fifteen minutes. Skip, now, hike!" At first I didn't tumble, then I went: For ‘‘Chase myself '' was all the geezer meant. He talks a lot about the "‘galley,"' too; I s'pose he means his girl. I rather guess That she'd be pretty mad if she just knew. How much he talks ‘bout putting forms to press Say! If he wants to hug her, that's his game. I wouldn't talk about it, just the same. I guess I'll have to quit; I'm getting bad. Sometimes I hate to go to Sunday school; I'll sure lose all the bringin'-up I've had If I do everythin' by printers rule. But if I stay and all the rest goes hang, Say what you will—I'm darned if I'll talk slang! —H. P. Lockhart.