The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor ByWallace Irwin Author ofThe Love Sonnets of a HoodlumThe Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, JuniorEtc. With a harmless and instructive IntroductionbyWolfgang Copernicus Addleburger Professor of Literary Bi-ProductsUniversity of Monte Carlo Muse of my native land, am I inspir'd?- Keats. Paul Elder & CompanySan Francisco and New York Mark what I say!Attend me where I wheel!- Troilus and Cressida. Copyright, 1908by Paul Elder and Company Introduction Science may conquer the stars, but it does nothing by jumps. As aScientist, as well as a philosopher, I am accustomed to reaching theTranscendental by winding paths. It is characteristic of me that Ishould have consented to preface this remarkable Sonnet Cycle only aftersupreme deliberation, and that I should at last have determined to speakin behalf of the Car Conductor for the following reasons: 1. As a Botanist I am fascinated by the phenomenon of Genius flourishingfrom bud to flower, from flower to seed. 2. As a Psychologist I am anxious to establish once and for all, both byplano-inductive and precoordinate systems of logic, the Status of Slang. What position does Slang occupy in the thought of the world? Let us turnto Zoology for an answer. No traces of Slang may be found among mollusks, crustaceans or the lowerinvertebrates. Slang is not common to vertebrate fishes or to whales, seals, reptiles or anthropoid apes - in a word, slang-speaking isnowhere prevalent among lower animals. It may, then, be definitely andclearly asserted that Slang is the natural, logical expression of theHuman Race. If Man, then, is the highest of created mammals, is not hisnatural speech (Slang) the highest of created languages? It is generallyconceded that Literature is the most exalted expression of Language. Would not the Literature, then, which employs the highest of createdlanguages (Slang) be the supreme Literature of the world? By such logical, irrefutable, inductive steps have I proven not only theStatus of Slang, but the literary importance of these Sonnets which itis at once my scientific duty and my esthetic pleasure to introduce. The twenty-six exquisite Sonnets which form this Cycle were written, probably, during the years 1906 and 1907. Their author was William HenrySmith, a car conductor, who penned his passion, from time to time, onthe back of transfer-slips which he treasured carefully in his hat[1]. We have it from no less an authority than Professor Sznuysko that theCar Conductor usually performed these literary feats in public, writingbetween fares on the rear platform of a Sixth Avenue car. Smith'sdevotion to his Musa Sanctissima was often so hypnotic, I am told, thathe neglected to let passengers on and off - nay, it is even held by somecritics that he occasionally forgot to collect a fare. But be it said tohis undying honor that his Employers never suffered from suchcarelessness, for it was the custom of our Poet to demand double faresfrom the old, the feeble and the mentally deficient. Even as the illimitable ichor of star-dust, the mysterious Demiurge ofthe Universe, keeps the suns and planets to their orbitary revolutions, so must environment mark the Fas and Nefas of Genius. Plato's Idea ofthe Archetypal Man was due, perhaps, as much to the serene weatherconditions of Academe as to the marvelous mentality of Plato. What hadJob eaten for breakfast that he should have given utterance to hismagnificent Lamentation? Was he the discoverer of Human Sorrow or thepioneer of Human Dyspepsia? It is not altogether radical on my part, then, for me to assert thatmany of the stylistic peculiarities found in these Sonnets areattributable to the locale of their inspiration the rear platform of aSixth Avenue car. One can plainly hear the jar and jounce of theelliptical wheels, the cry, "Step lively!" the six o'clock stampede, thelament of the strap-hanging multitude in such lines as these: "Three days with sad skidoo have came and went, Yet Pansy cometh nix to ride with me. I rubber vainly at the throng to seeHer golden locks - gee! such a discontent!Perhaps she's beat it with some soapy gent - " Where are lines like these to be found in the Italian of Petrarch? Wherehas Tasso uttered an impassioned confession to resemble this: "But when I ogle Pansy in the throngMy heart turns over twice and rings a gong"? Of the human or personal record of William Henry Smith very little hasbeen discovered. Looking over the books of the Metropolitan StreetRailway I unearthed the following entry: "Nov. 1, 1907:" "W. H. Smith, conductor, discharged. " "Remarks: - Car No. 21144, William Smith, conductor, ran into largebrewery truck at So. E. Cor. Sixth Ave. It is reported that Smith, tothe neglect of his duty, was reading poetry from a book called 'Sonnetsof de Heredia' at the time of the accident. Three Italians were slightlyinjured by the accident, and Ethelbert Pangwyn, an actor starring in'The Girl and the Idiot, ' a musical comedy, was killed. " "Smith was held for manslaughter, but Judge O' Rafferty, who had seen'The Girl and the Idiot, ' discharged the defendant, averring that thekilling of Pangwyn did not constitute a crime. " What, then, has become of this minstrel who sang the Minnelieder of theCar-barns? Like Homer, like Omar, like Sappho, like Shakespeare, he is aVoice singing out of the mists. He was but a Name to his employers; andhis friends, if he has friends, remember him not. These Sonnets, writtenneatly on twenty-six violet transfer-slips, were discovered, togetherwith a rejection blank from a leading magazine, in the Dead Letteroffice. According to the current folk-lore in Harlem and the Bronx, Smith is now living in California employed as a brakeman on the SouthernPacific Railroad. Some aver that Pansy fell heiress to a sausageestablishment and moved to Italy with her Poet. Still others maintainthat Pansy, Gill the Grip and Maxy the Firebug never existed in reallife - were merely the mind-children of a Symbolist and a dreamer ofdreams. To the latter theory I incline at a scholarly angle. This Cycle may betaken, perhaps, not so much as a living record of human experience as alofty parable sounding the key-note of all human life. Gill the Grip isthe Iago, the Mefistofele, the symbolism of a malevolent destiny. Maxythe Firebug may be the Poet's interpretation of the Social Unrest, ofDoubt, of progressive irresponsibility. Would it be going too far, then, to say that Pansy stands to us as the symbol of Pan-girlism - as analmost Anacreontic yearning for the type? Or may not these Sonnets betaken, in a way, as a modern Vita Nuova wherein a Sixth Avenue Alighiericalls to his Beatrice and mourns within when, "Pansy-girl refuses to occur?" So much for the Poet and his Purpose. Should any one of the readers ofthis Cycle doubt the enduring greatness of the lines, let him considerthat I, Wolfgang Copernicus Addleburger, have seen fit to introduce themto immortality. [1] Since the salary-books of the Metropolitan Street Railways show, during the year 1906, 182 conductors named Smith in their employ, 38 ofwhom were named William Smith and 12 William Henry Smith, it is easy forthe reader to conceive my task in establishing the identity of our Poet. W. C. A. The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor Prologue Did some one ask if I am on the job?I sure am to the pay-roll with my lay, A hot tabasco-poultice which will stayClose to the ribs and answer throb-to-throb. Here have I chewed my Music from the cobAnd followed Passion from the get-awayPast the big Grand Stand where the Pousse-CaféChristens my Muse as Jennie-on-the-Daub. Hark ye, all marks who break the Pure Fool Law, How I, the Windy Wonder of the Age, Have fought the Tender Passion to a drawAnd got my mug upon the Sporting Page, Since Love and I collided at the curveAnd left me with a Dislocated Nerve. I Am I in bad? upon the tick of nineToday the Pansy got aboard my shipAnd sprung the Trans-Suburban for a trip. Say, she's the shapely ticket pretty fine!Next to her pattern Anna Held looks shineAnd Lilly Russell doesn't know the grip. But oh! she's got a deep ingrowing tipThat she must shy at honks like yours and mine. I says to her, "Fare, please!" out loud like that, But she pipes, "Fade, Bill, fade! you pinched my fare. "That get-back tripped your Oswald to the mat, And yet I yelled, "Cough up here, Golden Hair!"Eh, what? I got the zing from Pansy's orbWhich says, "Dry out now, Shorty, - please absorb!" II A True McGlook once handed this to me:When little Bright Eyes cuts the cake for youCount twenty ere you eat the honey-gooWhich leads to love and matrimony - see?A small-change bunk what's bats on spending freeCan't four-flush when he's paying rent for two. The pin to flash on Cupid is 'Skidoo!'The call for Sweet Sixteen is 23. " But say! Life looks goshawful on the stretchWithout a Ray of Sunshine in my flat, With no one there to call me "Handsome wretch, "And dust the fuzz and mildew off my hat. If she was waiting at the church tonightYou'd find me there with wedding-bells all right! III Pansy got on at Sixteenth Street last night, And some one flipped a handspring in my heart. She snickered once, "Oh look, here's Mr. Smart!"Was I there Henry Miller? guess you're right!I did the homerun monologue as brightAs any scrub that ever learned the art. I plum forgot the signals, "Stop" and "Start!"And almost wrecked the car once - guess I might! I took one Mike six blocks beyond the placeHe flagged for his. He got as red as hamAnd yodelled through his apopleptic face, "I think you're dips!" I says, "I know I am - "When Pansy starts to send a wireless waveShe simply just can't make her eyes behave! IV On every car there's always one fat cootWhat goes to sleep and dreams he's paid his fare. And when you squeak he gets the Roosevelt glare, And hoots, "I won't be dickied with - I'll shoot!"Then all the passengers get in and root. Loud cheers of, "Put him off!" and "Make him square!"Till Mr. Holdfast with an injured airPungles his nick and ends the bum dispute. It's ever thus on this here rolling ball -You've got to pop your coin to ride so far. The yap that kicks and rings a deadhead callMust either spend or else get off the car. On Life's Street Railway wealth may cut the cheese, But Death rings up and says, "Step lively, please!" V "There'll be some fancy steps at Car-Barn Hall, "Gilly the Gripman pipes me off today, "This won't be any gabberfest - for say!Nix but the candy goes to this here ball. You've got to flash your union card, that's all, To circulate the maze with Tessie May, And all the Newport push out Harlem wayWill slip on wax till sunrise, - do you call?" I told him that I pulled the gong for that!If Pansy would be there 'twas was Me for It. I'd burnish up my buttons, mop my hat, Polish my pumps and blow in for a hit. "All to the Fritz, " says Gill, "if you get jollyAround the curves - you're apt to slip your trolley!" VI The lemon-wagon rumbled by todayAnd dropped me off a sour one - are you on?I went and gave the boss a cooney conAbout the Car-Barn Kick - what did he say?"Back to your platform, Clarence light and gay, Jingle the jocund fares, nor think uponThe larks of Harry Lehr or Bath House John, For they are It and you are still on pay. " So I have been sky-prancing all night longA-dragging car-conductors and their queensClad in their laughing-robes to join the throngThat makes the Car-Barn function all the beans. And say! I had a brainstorm just last tripWhen I took Pansy's fare from Gill the Grip. VII At Midnight when I got a gasp for lunchI mushed it for the Car-Barns just to lampAnd see the Creamy Charlies do the vampAnd swing their Fancy Floras in the crunch. I piped my Pansy in among the bunchAnd asked her would she mix it with the Champ, Wouldn't she like to join me in a stamp?She saw me first and stopped me with a punch. I saw her hook a loop with Gill the Grip, With Pinky Smith and Handsome Hank she heeled;With all the dossy bunks she took a skipEach time the German tune-professor spieled. But nix with me the lightsome toe she sprung -As Caesar said to Cassius, "Ouch! I'm stung!" VIII Forsooth that was a passing lusty cloutThat chopped me off with Pansy - don't you fret!There's quite a blaze inside my garret yet, And all the Dipper Corps can't put it out. Gilly the Grip's a pretty ricky tout -Under the old rag-rug for him, you bet, When I put on my Navajo and getOne license to unloose my soul and shout. Perhaps he thinks I'm old Molasses FreightSidetracked at Pokey Pond and filled with prunesWaiting for Congress to appropriateThe nuggets draped around me in festoons. Wait till I ticket Pansy, then I guessSlow Freight will switch to Honeymoon Express! IX Today I gave a serenade to Gill;I says, "To put it pleasant you're a screech, Your smile would shoo the seagulls off the beach, Your face would give Vesuvius a chill. You're just what Mr. Shakespeare calls 'a pillTrying to keep company with a peach. 'Now, if you want to answer with a speech, Open your trap at once, or else lie still. " But when I handed Gill the Grip this clusterHe simply clamped his language-mill down tight, Strangled his guff and acted rather flusterAlthough I'm sure I spoke to him polite. I guess that Mr. Gilly ain't the kindThat understands when people talk refined. X Three days with sad skidoo have came and went, Yet Pansy cometh nix to ride with me. I rubber vainly at the throng to seeHer golden locks - gee! such a discontent!Perhaps she's beat it with some soapy gent -Perhaps she's promised Gill the Grip to beHis No. 1 till Death tolls "23!"While I am Outsky in the supplement. Now and anon some Lizzie flags the trainAnd I, poor dots, cry, "Rapture, it is her!"Yet guess again - my hope is all in vainAnd Pansy girl refuses to occur. If this keeps up I think I'll finish swellAmong the jabbers in a padded cell. XI My Trolley hikes to Harlem p. D. Q. , And picks up pikers all along the beat. At six o'clock the aisles are full of feet, The straps with fingers, and the entire zooBoils on the platform with a mad hurooReckless as Bronx mosquitoes after meat. The widow stands, the fat man gets the seatAnd Satan smiles like Foxy M. Depew. And as we hikes along I thinks, thinks I, "The human race is like the ocean foam, Roaring and discontented, peevish, fly - "Say, why in blazes don't they stay to home?This travel-sickness is a danger whichKeeps hoboes poor and corporations rich. XII Today I piped my future Ma-in-law. She got aboard my Pullman and she scaredThree babies into fits the way she glared. Rattle my baggage if I ever sawA cracker-box to equal Mother's jaw, A hardwood-finish face all nailed and squared. She ossified the gripman when she stared -And me? Well, I was overcame with awe. But, being Pansy's Ma, 't was up to meTo hand her something pit-a-pat and swell, And so I says, "Hello, Queen Cherokee!What ho! for Pansy? hope she's feeling well. "And Ma responds, a trifle tart but game, "She minds her bizness - hope you feel the same. " XIII I don't think Mother chalked me out to win, To be the steady of her darling child. She thinks I am a kick-up, something wild, And no sweet girl should wear my college pin. She thinks I'm some too piffly with my chinAnd my soft prattle simply gets her riled. I've lost my keys with her, to put it mild, I don't belong, because I am not In. Say how, with such an iceberg on the track, Can I conduct my car to married bliss?I hoped that I could whistle Pansy back, And lo! I got a frostbite off of this!I'd wrastle Death for Her, I'd fight her Pa, -But stab me if I'll syrup to her Ma! XIV E'en as I stood with cobwebs in my towerA candy vision came and flagged the boat -Give forty rah-rah-rahs! O joy, O gloat!'Twas Pansy like a fairy in a bowerWarbling, "Hi, stop the car!" With all my powerI yanked the bell. My brain was all afloat, My heart cut pin-wheels, stole a base at throat, Sang "Tammany" - and knighthood was in flower. I helped her on. My shoes were full of feet. I says, "How's Ma?" She answers, "Going some. "I doffed my lid and ventured to repeatThe breeze had put the weather on the bum. Then she replied, not seeming sore or vexed, "It may not be so punk on Sunday next. " XV The Sinful Rich go whizzing by all dayIn wealthy wagons, looking pert and swell;They get the ride, the Commons get the smellAnd full of thought and microbes wend their way. Maxy the Firebug says that Mammon's swayIs stringing Virtue to a fare-ye-well, But wait, he says, till Labor with a yellSoaks Mam a crack forninst the vertebray. The Rich, says Max, are simply dips and yeggsThat lift the headlight beads from yaps like us;They pinch your pie, sew up our ham and eggsAnd leave us minus all that they are plus. The world, says Max, belongs to me and BillAnd Mrs. Casey - whoa! let's roll a pill! XVI At Mrs. Casey's hunger-killing shopWhither I hie thrice daily for my stew, I dream I'm Mr. Waldorf as I chewMy prunes or lay my Boston-baked on top. Growley and sinkers, slum and mutton sop, India-rubber jelly known as "glue, "A soup-bone goulash with a spud or two, Clatter below until I signal "Stop!" There may be chefs in France or AlbanyCan knock a poem from a wedge of pie;But just give me a check on Mrs. C. , For rapid-filling ballast, murmurs I. Kings may prefer some tasty wads of hash, But they don't feed at fifteen cents per crash! XVII Pansy and me for Coney Sunday noonTo see a perfect lady bump the bumps;We rubbered at the lions with the chumpsAnd took the Wellman special to the moon. She asks me, "Dance?" I answers, "Just as soon, "And so we clutched and whirled into the gumps, But every time I went to stir my stumpsThey stuck like gum-drops to a macaroon. "I could die dancing, Danny!" murmurs she. (I gambolled on her corns, she hollered, "Don't!")"I could die dancing also" (this from me), ""But if you'll pass me up, I guess I won't. "Just then some lemon-sport observed my glideAnd warbled, "Slide, you frozen chicken, slide!" XVIII I next sprung Pansy for a four-bit feed -It was a giddy tax, but what care I?We shot the bill-of-fare from soup to pieAnd lemonade (that cost an extra seed). "You're the cute plunge, " says Pans', and I agreedThat at a spenderfest I wasn't shy, -That when it came to rolling nickels by, Willie the Cowboy was a perfect bleed. She said that Thomas Lawson on a larkWould faint away to see the way I blew;She said I'd be the whizz in Central Park, And Ready Cash to me seemed very few. I asked her, Did she need a Valentine?And she responded, "You're the pink for mine!" XIX We took the iron-clad wave-tub home at ten, And as we sat conversing on the deckA certain Hester-street spaghetti-neckPipes through the darkness, "Who's yer ladyfren'?"There might have been a hoe-down there and then(That war-ship never came so near a wreck);The dog-eye boy got just as pale as heckAnd made a duck behind the trenches, when - Pansy boiled up and clamped me by a flip. "Nixie the kindergarten!" murmurs she. "Gents, " I replied out loud, "Get off the shipAnd walk, or else nail down that repartee. This yard of lace I'm holding, so to speak, Is pinned on tight - or will be in a week. " XX A-lopping on a car-barn bench I spiedGilly the Grip, quite recent this g. M. , Just like a lily on a broken stemOr like a Salt Lake buck without a bride. "Chirk, Gilly, chirk!" I says in tones of pride, "Perhaps this unhinged heart is just pro tem. The world is full of pompadours for themThat keep their search-lights peeled from side to side. " But Gill remarked, "Eh, what? Say, I'm so slowI couldn't catch the hour-hand on a clock. I'm simply stationary as they grow;. A lamp-post race could beat me round the block. You needn't think you're such an Alfred G. , To motor by a quarry-cart like me!" XXI Next week the wedding-bells won't do a thing, For I'll be there, I guess, to fill the set, And Pansy's Ma, she won't be late, you bet, To see the Reverend Mr. Pull the string. Me for a spike-tailed scabbard and a ring, A shell-back shirt, forsooth a peacherette. I'll be the daintiest bridegroom ever yet;Nothing to do but take the count, then - bing! Love in a cottage run on union pay -Can Teddy Roosevelt do a sum like that?Two can eat cheap as one, perhaps, but say, You've got to beat a quarter pretty flatTo cork three squares, make Little Two Shoes snugAnd keep the Wolf from chewing up the rug. XXII Methinks I'm tagged to join the Worry Club, To chase the fleeting rhino through the gloom, To bag the boodle, trap the wild mazumeAnd scratch for corn when Pansy hollers "Grub!"They say I'll turn as sickly as a chubWhen on the First, with dull and deadly boom, The Rent comes round and walks into the room, Remarking, "Peel or else file out, you scrub!" But when your arms are full of girl and fluffYou hide your nerve behind a yard of grin;You'd spit into a wild cat's face or bluffA flock of dragons with a safety pin. Life's a slow skate, but Love's the dopey gumThat puts a brewery horse in racing trim. Epilogue Kind reader, when you 'phone don't ask for meEnquiring how a Flossie should be won -There isn't any Rule Book, are you on?And Queenie can't be coaxed by recipee. Some girls like hard-luck music, minor key, Some like the Gas-car Gussie act, hot ton, Others are simply fierce for Jolly JohnWho loves to make a noise like repartee. None but the Nerve, say I, deserves the Fair, And stony hearts can't stand up long to chin. If Willie-on-the-doormat lingers thereThe chances are he'll be Invited In. Up against Love the Candy Kid is nix;The Porous Plaster wins because it sticks