The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1917-08-02
Don Marquis
Column
Interviews in Rhyme.

u.-cLEoPATRA.
Your representative has seen the
Serpent OF Old Nilus
About the Antony anair and never
has my stylus
Been called upon before to sketch .
character SO charming -.
Although, at times Her Majesty has
moods that are alarming. &.
81 live my own life" Cleopatra said,
and, my intent IL
To persevere in that respect; I'll fol-
low what my bent Is!
You say Octavia's suing me for
eighty thousand dollars?
A woman who can't hold her husband
dltCdys peeves and hollers!
But what q bourgeois thing to do!
How common and how Roman!
By Isis, kid, q. thoroughbred would
put price on no man"
The queen received me on the roof
directly after dinner;
She's looking well, she IL
some queen! perhaps tribe
thinner
Then when she met Julie Caesar on
that gink's Egyptian mis-
The time he told his wife she'd ought
TO be shove suspicion
She gave me coffee in q cup carved
from a single ruby;
As she was pouring 1t a slave, q
thick. thumb-handed BOBBY,
Spilled some upon her royal neck.
which rather riled our queen
let
She swung q jeweled scimitar and
nicked his Nubian bean
The Nile, below us, squIrmsd and
flashed with phosphoreseent
fishes,
And now and then a crocodile, con-
tent and unambitious,
Would root against the palace steps
and scratch his back and bel
low,
Or some lorn hippopotamus would
MARBLE for his fellow D.
And now and then, as we conversed.
the queen. in merry mood. o,
Would kick q courtier from the roof
to give her pets their food. o;
IT Iodthe Conventions. said the queen
My soul cannot be harried
With Trivial Things will not be Vic
torian. Trammeled, Married.
I gotta be Myself, old kid. and II a.
such l break up
Some Home homogeneous, what then?
cannot help my makeup!
Soul-mates are Soul-matesi Get me,
Kid9 / always had q leaning
Toward Freedom, kid! You otta Give
your Love q Higher meaning!
You got that down? SsHst express
rnyseIf!-end you might men
tioa
That to my mind there's nothing is as
Soieksd a. Convention!
Serpent" I said. another point per-
haps you'd care to answer
octavia has spread the word, from
Capricorn to Cancer.
That while you have the will to be
regular Moral Leper
She has you faded, frail to frail, for
pulchritude and pepper
She says, in short. your Work IL
Coarse, your tricks are out OF
killer.
And that you'd not "a trapped her
Mark but that you used phil
ter"
"D,d she say that" Miss Ptolmey
rose, ferocious as q Bulgar,
Then Gained herself and murmured
low: MY Gawd! How crude
and vulgar!
You paint 'em blue. or chalk EN-
white, or rub 'em with erasers,
Their comrnonplaceness trtH stick out
on all the commonplacers!
This Mrs. Marcus Anthony Is really
quite PATHETIC;
It's personality that wins, not poses
or cosmetic
But why should ! get sore at herr
I'll not descend to handy.
Words with such a low-browed skirt
=. nor send her poisoned
candy"
And yet Il seemed to me the queen,
beneath her calm external.
Was somewhat stung: for as left
heard a noise Internal;
Next day learned that she had looO-
ed a large man-eating tiger
A pet particular OF hers brought
northward from the Niger
Among her royal servants who, In
rushing from the palace,
Were met by waiting crocodiles.
think she harbors malice. -.
She took q dozen female slaves and
named each'''Mrs. Tony"
And fed them to the ibises, and did II
all-aloney,
our little queen is calm,
sweet-natured. soft and gentle;
And then again she's something else.
She calls Il ''Temper'men-