Punch

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WHAT POLLY ONCE CONFESSED " Since you insist, you fool, why then, I'll tell you . . . Love Punch? Good Lord! I hope I'm not so silly! Red-nosed, with hands like hams, humpbacked and bandy,? And small green rheumy eyes! I'd sooner love The wildman that they showed us in the circus! Him with the ring in his nose, and the leaves in his hair, And the long arms like a gorilla's always dragging! Love him! . . . Don't make me laugh. I'll crack the mirror. But since you insist (and I can see you're hungry As all men are, sooner or later, in love, To root among my muddy secrets, snuffling Above them with a leering satisfaction) Why then, I'll tell you. Hate me if you want to. The whole thing comes to one word ? jealousy! . . . And I won't say that as I look back on it, And all that came from it of lies and hatred, I don't, sometimes, feel fifty kinds of fool . . . You've heard of jealousy? How wise you are! Well, then, you know how blind and cruel it is, How like a cramp it shuts about the heart And turns the blood to poison, and so sends it Creeping into the brain for schemes of torture. Judy and I were jealous ? that's the story. Why were we? God knows! ask me something easy. We do things, feel things, sometimes, without knowing The reason why. As far as I remember I hated Judy ? Judy hated me. At five years old she stuck her tongue out at me; At ten years old we pulled each other's hair; At fifteen ? well ? she stole my sweetheart from me. We had a way of smiling at each other ? So innocent it seemed, and oh so sweet! ? That had the basilisk beaten to a frazzle. Look, I can do it still, I've had such practice! ? We lowered our lids?like this?; and smiled ? like this! . . . So, we grew up. And one fine day this Punch Came roaring into town, with all his stories Of women ...