Tom Van Arden, my old friend.

{71}

Tom Van Arden, my old friend,
I grow prosy, and you tire;
Fill the glasses while I bend
To prod up the failing fire. . . .
You are restless:--I presume
There's a dampness in the room.--
Much of warmth our nature begs,
With rheumatics in our legs! . . .

Humph! the legs we used to fling
Limber-jointed in the dance,
When we heard the fiddle ring
Up the curtain of Romance,
And in crowded public halls
Played with hearts like jugglers' balls.--
_Feats of mountebanks, depend!_--
Tom Van Arden, my old friend.

Tom Van Arden, my old friend,
Pardon, then, this theme of mine:
While the firelight leaps to lend
Higher color to the wine,--
I propose a health to those
Who have _homes_, and home's repose,
Wife- and child-love without end!
. . . Tom Van Arden, my old friend.

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[Illustration: Our old friend Neverfail--headpiece]

OUR OLD FRIEND NEVERFAIL

O it's good to ketch a relative 'at's richer and don't run
When you holler out to hold up, and'll joke and have his fun;
It's good to hear a man called bad and then find out he's not,
Er strike some chap they call lukewarm 'at's really red-hot;

{73}

It's good to know the Devil's painted jes' a leetle black,
And it's good to have most anybody pat you on the back;--
But jes' the best thing in the world's our old friend Neverfail,
When he wags yer hand as honest as an old dog wags his tail!

I like to strike the man I owe the same time I can pay,
And take back things I've borried, and su'prise folks thataway;
I like to find out that the man I voted fer last fall,
That didn't git elected, was a scoundrel after all;
I like the man that likes the pore and he'ps 'em when he can;
I like to meet a ragged tramp 'at's still a gentleman;
But most I like--with you, my boy--our old friend Neverfail,
When he wags yer hand as honest as an old dog wags his tail!

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MY BACHELOR CHUM

A corpulent man is my bachelor chum,
With a neck apoplectic and thick--
An abdomen on him as big as a drum,
And a fist big enough for the stick;
With a walk that for grace is clear out of the case,
And a wobble uncertain--as though
His little bow-legs had forgotten the pace
That in youth used to favor him so.

He is forty, at least; and the top of his head