Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-01-09
& @I@I@1@/@1@I@I@I@I@I@I@I@ @I@I@I@I9@0@1@@IS0 s THE POETS ESCAPE. S
 @ BY CHARLES B. LEWIS. z g2Pg1@1@%2/ SSPgg,Ss1 s 2/@l2@@@@@
BY CHARLES B. LEWIS.
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| Jaws as SHe GueWS ACi | ote VI . e' make gum rhyme with hum or 'drum'?'
 I laid down the manuscript and told him that 1 would not read another line of it-not to please the biggest robber in the land. He reached over and took it up, and after a hearty laugh he read the second verse. The rhymes were 'hair," dear" sweet" and neat but he made them stare, swear .'beat" and feat" and he laughed in a contemptuous way and said:
 My dear boy, you come about as near being an idiot asylum as anybody I ever met. The idea of a grown-up man with whiskers on his chin writing such bosh as this! You'd better go out and hoe cabbage at a shilling day
 His words hurt me, and likewise made me mad, and I blurted out that a poet was looked upon as a grade or two above a robber.
 That's so-that's so," he laughed, 'but you are not poet, you see. You are simply a love-sicll, moon-struck, callow calf If that girl Margaret has got any sense in her head she'll have no use for you until you drop this bust- ness. If you must write poetry or die, then write of pork and beans and other solid things"
 q haven't asked you for adFicel" l rapped back.
 But you need advice-lots fit. Let's see this ode to the moon. Well, ha! ha! ha! You sigh to walk in moonlight paths with the idol of your heart, do you? Better sit right down in a com fortable room and eat peanuts with Margaret than to be wandering around over the wet grass and get the snuffies. Poets do have the snuffles now and then, suppose2"
 'None of your business!"
 Isn't it enough that you are here to rob the house?" I asked, as he grew red in the face with laughter.
 "'No, of course not" he promptly re- piled. II come here to rob. I make neat job of effecting an entrance. l get out all the solid silver and make tidy bundle of it. do the job in d way to do honor to my profession. I am all through when I discover a pumpkin headed poet in his bed.= You may not believe it. but 1 feel for you. l can't get away without giving you some fatherly advice
 q don't want your advice" But you'll get it just the same. ca1- low youth. In the first place, you are a rhymester instead of poet. There's no more poetry in those verses than in that ham-bone. If Margaret is the girl I take her to be she'll never marry rhymester. In the next place, you are selfish and cruel to write of the moon the silent night. the vine-clad hills and so forth in the way you do They are helpless to hit back. In the third place, you ought to be put to bed with nurs- ing bottle. Poetry-ye gods!"
 could only sit and grit my teeth and wish for his annihilation. He looked at me and realized how it was and laughed with great heartiness, and by and by he showed back from the table, lighted cigar and said with much seriousness:
 "Young man, don't be a fool. If I hadn't seen these verses I should have sized you up as pretty level-headed. There was time in my own life when l turned to poetry and gum-drops and all that, but it didn't last me long. This is world in which the price of pork concerns man more than the dancing rays of the moonlight. Go out of the business
 glared at him and wanted to kill him, but didn't know just what to say in reply.
 You haven't got the nerve to orna- ment my profession" he went on after a time, but you might do for law or medicine. Perhaps you've got enough i horse-sense to master a trade. It seems sinful to me to see young man like you sit down to sweat and stew over finding rhyme for cabbage Drop it right here and now. Poets and poetry -ha! ha! hal I wish could take you along with me for q week or two to amuse me, but I can't. Do you drop the jingle business. or don't you ?"
 T do just as please, I answered.
 'Yes, of course. It never does any good to call a young man a fool. On
  the contrary, the more he realizes that he is a fool the harder he sticks to it to spite himself. You may take turn and amount to something, or you may keep right on and die a poet-and 2 donkey. I shall hope for the best. Please enter that closet"
 What for?"
 T must lock you up to make myself safe. Come now, no fooling."
 But it may be a week before any, one comes to release me, I protested.
 "Yes, it may be, but I'll leave you T knife to cut panel out of the door. You can do it in 24 hours, if you don't hunt for too many rhymes. 4 good rhyme for door is soar, but YOU won't soar very high-not for day or so."
 I entered the closet from which he had removed the family silver, and he flung me the carving knife, turned the key, and five minutes later had left the house with his plunder. began on n panel of the oaken door almost at once. but 1t was matter of ten hours before | orox-1oI o,,t in,t1 Flo