Observe him, in the best armchair,
At ev'ry "Service" Club reclining!
How brightly through its close-cropped hair!
His polished skull is shining!
His form, inert and comatose,
Suggests a stertorous repose.

What strains are these that echo clear?
What music on our ears is falling?
Through his Æolian nose we hear
The distant East a-calling.
(A good example here is found
Of slumber that is truly "sound.")

He dreams of India's coral strand,
Where, camping by the Jimjam River,
He sacrificed his figure and
The best part of his liver,
And, in some fever-stricken hole,
Mislaid his pow'rs of self-control.

Blow lightly on his head, and note
Its surface change from chrome to hectic;
Examine that pneumatic throat,
That visage apoplectic.
His colour-scheme is of the type
That plums affect when over-ripe.

With rising gorge he stands erect,
Awakened by your indiscretion,
Becoming slowly Dunlop-necked —
(To coin a new expression);
Where stud and collar form a juncture,
You contemplate immediate puncture.

His head, like some inverted cup,
Ascends, a Phoenix, from its ashes;
His eyebrows rise and beckon up
His "porterhouse" moustaches;¹
And you acknowledge, as you flinch,
That he's a Colonel – ev'ry inch!

The voice that once in strident tones
Across the barrack-square could carry,
Reverberates and megaphones
A rich vocabulary.
(His "rude forefathers," you'll agree,
Were never half so rude as he.)

As blatantly he catalogues
The grievances from which he suffers: —
"The Service gone, sir, to the dogs!"
"The men, sir, all damduffers!"
In so invet'rate a complainer
You recognise the "old champaigner."

His raven locks (just two or three)
Recall their retrospective splendour;
One of the brave Old Guard is he,
That dyes but won't surrender;
With fits of petulance afflicted,
When questioned, crossed, or contradicted.

But as, alas! from poor-man's gout,
Combined with chronic indigestion,
The breed is quickly dying out —
(The fact admits no question) —
I'll give you, if advice you're taking,

A recipe for Colonel-making.
Select some subaltern whose tone
Is bluff and anything but "soul-y;"
Transplant him to a torrid zone;
There leave him stewing slowly;
Remove his liver and his hair,
Then serve up hot in an armchair.

X
THE WAITER

"He also serves who only stands and waits!"
My hero does all three, and even more.
Bearing a dozen food-congested plates,
With silent tread (altho' his feet are sore),
He swiftly skates across the parquet floor.
None can afford completely to ignore him,
Because, of course, he "carries all before him!"

Endowed with some of Cinquevalli's charm,
He poises plate on plate, and never swerves;
Two in each hand, three more up either arm, —
A feat of balancing which tries the nerves
Of the least timid customer he serves.
So firm his carriage, and his gait so stable,
He is the Blondin of the dinner-table.

Rising abruptly at the break of day
(A custom more might copy, I confess),
The waiter hastens, with the least delay,
To don that unbecoming evening-dress
Which etiquette compels him to possess.
('Tis too the conjurer's accustomed habit,
Whence he evolves a goldfish or a rabbit.)

Each calling its especial trademark bears.
The anarchist parades a red cravat;
The eminent physician always wears
A stethoscope concealed within his hat;
A diamond stud proclaims the plutocrat;
The rural dean displays a sable gaiter,
And evening dress distinguishes the waiter.

Time was when he was elderly and staid,
With long sidewhiskers and an old-world air.
How gently, with what rev'rent hands, he laid
A bottle of some vintage rich and rare
Within a pail of ice beneath your chair,
Like some proud steward in a hall baronial
Performing an important ceremonial.

How cultured his well-modulated voice,
His manner how distingué and discreet,
As he directed your capricious choice
To what 'twere best and pleasantest to eat,
Or warmly recommended the Lafitte.
A perfect pattern of the genus homo,
More like a bishop than a major-domo.

He kept as grave as the proverbial tomb
When in some haven "hush'd and safe apart,"
You sought the shelter of a private room,
To entertain the lady of your heart
At a delightful dinner à la carte.
(The consequences would, he knew, be shocking
Were he perchance to enter without knocking.)

Now he is haggard, pale and highly-strung,
The alien product of some Southern sun.
Who speaks an unintelligible tongue
And serves impatient patrons at a run,
Snatching away their plates before they've done.
Brisk as a bee, and restless as the Ocean,
He solves the problem of perpetual motion.

You would not look to him for good advice;
To him your choice you never would resign.
He gauges from the point of view of price
The rival worth of each respective wine;
His tastes, indeed, are frankly Philistine,
And, with a mien indifferent or placid,
He serves your claret cold and corked and acid.

His is a tragic fate, a dreary lot.
Think sometimes of his troubles, I entreat,
Who in a crowded restaurant and hot
Walks to and fro on tired and tender feet,
Watching his hungry fellow-creatures eat!
What form of earthly hardship could be greater
Than that which daily overwhelms the waiter?

XI
THE POLICEMAN

My hero may be daily seen
In ev'ry crowded London street;
Longsuff'ring, stoical, serene,
With huge pontoonlike feet,
His boots so stout, so squat, so square,
A motor-car might shelter there.

The traffic's cataract he dams,
With hands that half obscure the sun,
Like monstrous, vast Virginian hams.
A trifle underdone;
The while the matron and the maid
Pass safely by beneath their shade.

His courtesy is quite unique,
His tact and patience have no end;
He helps the helpless and the weak,
He is the children's friend;
And nobody can feel alarm
Who clings to his paternal arm.

When foreign tourists go astray
In any tangled thoroughfare,
Or spinster ladies lose their way, —
The constable is there.
With smile avuncular and bland,
He leads them gently by the hand.

He stalks on duty through the night,
A bull's-eye lantern at his belt;
His muffled steps are noiseless quite,
His soles unheard – tho' felt!
And burglars, when a crib they crack,
Are forced to do so from the back.

In far New York the "man in blue"
Is Irish by direct descent.
His bludgeon is intended to
Inflict a nasty dent;
And if you ask him for advice,
He knocks you senseless in a trice.

In Paris he is fierce and small,
But tho' he twirls his waxed moustache,
The natives heed him not at all.
No more does the apache.
And cabmen, when he lifts his palm,
Drive over him without a qualm.

The German minion of the law
Is stern, inflexible, austere.
His presence fills his friends with awe,
The foreigner with fear.
Your doom is sealed if he should pass
And find you walking on the grass!

But no policeman can compare
With London's own partic'lar pet;
A martyr he who stands foursquare
To ev'ry Suffragette,
And when that lady kicks his shins
Or bites his ankles, merely grins.

He may not be as bright, forsooth,
As Dr. Watson's famous foil, —
Sherlock, that keen unerring sleuth
Immortalised by Doyle,
And Patti who, where'er she roams,
Asserts "There's no Police like Holmes!"

But though his movements, staid and slow,
Provide the vulgar with a jest,
How true the heart that beats below
That whistle at his breast!
How perfect an example he
Of what a constable should be!