The Adventures of a Modest Man

The Adventures of a Modest Man
Robert Chambers

Robert W. Chambers

The Adventures of a Modest Man

TO

Mr. and Mrs. C. Wheaton Vaughan

This volume packed with bric-à-brac
I offer you with my affection, —
The story halts, the rhymes are slack —
Poor stuff to add to your collection.
Gems you possess from ages back:
It is the modern junk you lack.

We three once moused through marble halls,
Immersed in Art and deep dejection,
Mid golden thrones and choir-stalls
And gems beyond my recollection —
Yet soft! – my memory recalls
Red labels pasted on the walls!

And so, perhaps, my bric-à-brac
May pass the test of your inspection;
Perhaps you will not send it back,
But place it – if you've no objection —
Under some nick-nack laden rack
Where platters dangle on a tack.

So if you'll take this book from me
And hide it in your cupboards laden
Beside some Dresden filigree
And frivolously fetching maiden —
Who knows? – that Dresden maid may see
My book – and read it through pardie!

    R. W. C.

AN INADVERTENT POEM

There is a little flow-urr
In our yard it does grow
Where many a happy hou-urr
I watch our rooster crow;
While clothes hang on the clothes-line
And plowing has began
– And the name they call this lit-tul vine
Is just "Old Man."

Old Man, Old Man
A-growing in our yard,
Every spring a-coming up
While yet the ground is har-rrd;
Pottering 'round the chickens' pan,
Creeping low and slow,
And why they call it Old Man
I never asked to know.
I never want to know.

Crawling through the chick-weed,
Dragging through the quack,
Pussly, tansy, tick-weed
Almost break his back.
Catnip, cockle, dock prevent
His travelling all they can,
But still he goes the ways he's went,
Poor Old Man!

Old Man, Old Man,
What's the use of you?
No one wants to see you, like
As if you hadn't grew.
You ain't no good to nothing
So far as I can see,
Unless some maiden fair will sing
These lines I've wrote to thee.
And sing 'em soft to me.

Some maiden fa-hair
With { ra-haven} hair
{ go-holden }
Will si-hing this so-hong
To me-hee-ee!

CHAPTER I

CONCERNING TWO GENTLEMEN FROM LONG ISLAND, DESTINY, AND A POT OF BLACK PAINT

"Hello, old man!" he began.

"Gillian," I said, "don't call me 'Old Man.' At twenty, it flattered me; at thirty, it was all right; at forty, I suspected double entendre; and now I don't like it."

"Of course, if you feel that way," he protested, smiling.

"Well, I do, dammit!" – the last a German phrase. I am rather strong on languages.

Now another thing that is irritating – I've got ahead of my story, partly, perhaps, because I hesitate to come to the point.