Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/26

24 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 môme. And so I kept an eye on them and saw that all went right, Until at last came Julot home, half crazy with delight. And when he’d kissed them both, says he: “I’ve had my fill this time. I’m on the honest now, I am; I’m all fed up with crime. You mark my words, the page I turn is going to be clean, I swear it on the head of her, my little Angeline.”

And so, to finish up my tale, this morning as I strolled Along the boulevard I heard a voice I knew of old. I saw a rosy little man with walrus-like mustache… I stopped, I stared…. By all the gods! ’twas Julot the apache.