Ballads of a Bohemian by Robert W. (Robert William) Service
page 15 of 211 (07%)
page 15 of 211 (07%)
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"I'd like to chuck it in the Seine," he sourly snarled, "and yet
I guess I'll have to let it live, because of Gigolette." I only laughed, for sure I saw his spite was all a bluff, And he was prouder than a prince behind his manner gruff. Yet every day he'd blast the brat with curses deep and grim, And swear to me that Gigolette no longer thought of ~him~. And then one night he dropped the mask; his eyes were sick with dread, And when I offered him a smoke he groaned and shook his head: "I'm all upset; it's Angeline . . . she's covered with a rash . . . She'll maybe die, my little ~gosse~," cried Julot the ~apache~. But Angeline, I joy to say, came through the test all right, Though Julot, so they tell me, watched beside her day and night. And when I saw him next, says he: "Come up and dine with me. We'll buy a beefsteak on the way, a bottle and some ~brie~." And so I had a merry night within his humble home, And laughed with Angeline the ~gosse~ and Gigolette the ~mome~. And every time that Julot used a word the least obscene, How Gigolette would frown at him and point to Angeline: Oh, such a little innocent, with hair of silken floss, I do not wonder they were proud of Angeline the ~gosse~. And when her arms were round his neck, then Julot says to me: "I must work harder now, ~mon vieux~, since I've to work for three." He worked so very hard indeed, the police dropped in one day, And for a year behind the bars they put him safe away. So dark and silent now, their home; they'd gone -- I wondered where, Till in a laundry near I saw a child with shining hair; And o'er the tub a strapping wench, her arms in soapy foam; Lo! it was Angeline the ~gosse~, and Gigolette the ~mome~. |
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