Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/221

 The Little Old Lawyer BY DAN C. RULE, JR.

ONE Saturday night, Julie says to me, "Larry, I want a silk dress, and a dimun tiary, And a Frinch limousine; but, Larry Malone, The thing I must have is a home of me own. A little brown cottage I have in me eye, That's hard by the mills and that's easy to buy. The owner agrees, since we live by days' works, To let us move in and buy it by jerks; 'Ten dollars a month, and ten dollars down,' Said the Little Old Lawyer of Dillingham town." We had lived in the cottage not more than a year, When the mills where I labored stood silent and drear; And I muttered to Julie, "A strike is a kind Of a gun that's less deadly in front than behind. On the little brown house the dues we must meet, Or yer puff and me shavin'-mug lands in the street! Can ye think of a way, and explain it by stages, How installments are paid when ye're gettin' no wages?" But Julie replied with a sigh and a frown, "Ask the Little Old Lawyer of Dillingham town." I stood in his office and held up me head, And asked him the question, as Julie had said. He smiled as he pointed his hand at me hair, And replied, "Ye have plenty of silver up there." Then he fished out the deed from a neat little pack, And scowled as he scribbled a line on the back. "Because I am close as the glaze on a brick, The price of yer home ye must tender me quick, Which is nothin' a month and one dollar down," Said the Little Old Lawyer of Dillingham town. They'll let Julie and me into Heaven, we trust. When there, we will ask for some emery dust, And off in a corner, we'll polish a crown For the Little Old Lawyer of Dillingham town. Clyde, Ohio.