Part 1

CIVIL SERVICE JINGLES AND OTHER THINGS

_By_ HARRY McDONALD WALTERS

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_~Ottawa~_

_~1911~_

PREFACE

Mr. Walters has invited me to write a few prefatory lines to his volume of “Civil Service Jingles and Other Things”, and I cheerfully comply, although it may be at the risk of doing harm to his really meritorious enterprise. It has been my privilege to read many of these selections in manuscript, and some of them have already seen the light of day in print. I have frankly encouraged him to make up the present collection and give his fellow civil servants an opportunity to have it in library form. He may have been influenced in a positive way by this advice, and to that extent I find an excuse for adding my commendation now. I really like these aptly named “Jingles”, which have clearly been written more for the idle hour than the study. They appeal to me as revealing a bright and observing mind, combined with the rare gift of putting ideas into an entertainingly satirical shape. They are witty without being unwholesome, and while they are not in any sense pretentious, they are nevertheless distinctly creditable to Mr. Walters’ genius.

J. L. PAYNE.

THE SONG OF THE EXTRA CLERK

We are a fine body of men, All truly good knights of the pen, For our knowledge and work Every permanent clerk,[1] Gets all of the credit “ye ken.”

You never hear about we, And the reason is clear as can be, If they take notice of us, There would be a fuss, For we’d have to get paid, don’t you see?

As it is, the Permanent Staff, In its sleeve has reason to laugh, For the poor Extra Clerk,[2] Does most of the work, [3] While considered merely riff-raff.

We never get drunk on our pay As “permanents” do, so they say, If we did we’d be sick, For they’d throw us out quick, And we’d lose our “so much” a day.

It pains us to hear the remarks Made by the Permanent Clerks,[4] About their low pay, And the Parliament’s way Of acting by Fitz and by sTarts. [5]

When you come to boil down the facts, Notwithstanding things in the Acts, Permanent Staff is too small Or is no good at all, Else why Extra Jimmies and Jacks.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Pronounce as written CLERK.

[2] Do it again.

[3] Reference D. P. W.

[4] Pronounce Clerk as in the “upper suckles.”

[5] This joke was first made in 1902.

THE PARABLE OF GASTONIO

AND HOW HE SAVED HIS BACON

And Gastonio was sore afraid; he quaked with fear so that his knees wobbled, and his face paled even to the brown wart on his nose.

And the reason thereof was that his brother Alphonso was discovered.

And he lifted up his voice, and it was a heavy voice, and he roared like unto the roar of a bull, and he cried out, “If my brother Alphonso is discovered, I am found.”

Now Alphonso, the brother of Gastonio, was a lobster, strong in the claw but weak in the headpiece, and he was expensive and needed much money.

And Alphonso had a large open face with nothing behind it; but Gastonio had a small narrow face and behind it was much.

And these two were in the service of the King--Gastonio the elder, because he knew things, and Alphonso because his brother Gastonio was in it.

And it came to pass that Alphonso used much public money, but gave little service therefor. And the multitude became wise and discovered Alphonso in his ill-doing. And Gastonio was sore afraid lest he, too, should be separated from his breath. And so he wept and lamented that he had closed his eye to the doings of Alphonso.

And there was a great meeting of the rulers of the people, in the House which is called Common, because it is so. And they made inquiries into things. And one of the things was Alphonso.

And so the Rulers called Gastonio before them and demanded of him saying: “Where is thy brother? What doeth he? And wherefore doth he live on the fat of the land, yet toil not, neither spin, except such yarns as are called “smutty”?”

And Gastonio communed within himself, with fear and trembling.

“Speak,” said the rulers, “or be condemned.”

And, behold, a cunning scheme came into the mind of Gastonio, and he spoke thusly: “Know ye my masters, that the doings of my brother Alphonso are not to my cognizance. Some one thinking to curry favour in my sight hath appointed him and put this money in his hand without my knowledge or consent.”

“Then,” said the Rulers, “we must have an investigation.”

And immediately Gastonio was aware that he was saved, and he smiled a long smile in his sleeve, for he knew that He who is Investigated is Safe.

THE RISE AND FALL OF TRIPE

In the reign of the Caliph John Aye the great Mac, there dwelt in the Mountain City, a poor scribe called _Patrie-pa_, a son of the East who made a precarious living pen pushing; and the neighbors of Patrie-pa and the neighbors’ little boys referred to him as “Tripe” for short. One day Tripe, while carrying a large roll of Manuscript to a customer, stopped to rest himself upon the steps of a great palace; the air that came from within the palace was scented and sweet, and besides strains of beautiful music were wafted on the summer breeze accompanied by the dulcet notes of nightingales and things.

From the melody, and smell of savoury dishes, Tripe concluded that a feast with great rejoicing was in progress; being of an enquiring turn of mind he was curious to know who so rejoiced and the reason thereof, so he hied him to the back door of the palace and enquired of the servants the names of the revellers. “What?” replied one of them, “do you live in the Mountain City and know not that this is the feast of the Conservers, the bodyguard and henchmen of the Great Mac?” “Holy Smoke,” said Tripe loud enough to be heard, “consider the diff. between these and me; I am exposed every day to duns and Bailiffs and such, and can scarcely get pea-soup for myself and family, while these popular politicians expend the riches of the people and lead a life of pleasure. What have they done to enjoy a lot so agreeable, and what have I done to deserve one so wretched?” While poor Tripe was thus complaining a servant came out of the palace and bade him follow him, as the Caliph Mac had heard his wail and would speak with him. Trembling, Tripe followed the servant into the presence of the Great Mac, who by giving the poor fellow the glad hand, soon put him at his ease. Mac enquired kindly after his health, and on examining his Manuscript was much pleased with the turn of his P’s and Q’s; Mac being ambitious at the time to stand well with those of the East thought that if he raised this poor Tripe it would be noised about and he would find favour in the eyes of the East; so he said to Tripe, “So, so my good scribe, you complain of your lot and wail aloud when times are good! How now would you like a position under us? I will make you one of my Chief Squirts, at Umpty pieces of Silver now and again and pickings: what say you?” Now Tripe although poor was no slouch; he had much cunning and was no moss back; and so albeit the position of Squirt was no great dignity, he abased himself before Mac and accepted his offer with much flow of thankful words.

Before many moons had passed Tripe had shown such aptitude as a Schemer and became so useful to Mac that he was promoted from Chief Squirt to High Jobber, and from that rose finally to be Mac’s Wind Raiser, and so remained until the death of Mac. Now when Mac died, the Conservers who were in power hoped to elect another Caliph in his stead of their own stripe; and in this they did temporarily succeed by electing one Tomtom; but they trotted in hard luck, for Tomtom was soon gathered to his fathers, and when they replaced Tomtom by the Caliph Scrupper they were defeated on the first onslaught of the Liberators, who deposed Scrupper and elected Wilfridus, the Silver Tongue, in his stead. In this way was Tripe thrown on his beam ends, but nothing daunted he straightway went to Wilfridus, and by arguments of how he had enabled the Grand Old Man to raise the wind, and by informations of all the secret hiding-places of the Conservers, and saying also that anyway at heart he had never been a Conserver, but really a good hot Liberator, he so worked upon the credulity of Wilfridus, who was new to the game, that Wilfridus reinstated him in the position of Wind-Raiser and also made him Sinister of Wublic Perks, requiring only in return that he should make a public exhibition of himself by changing his Blue Coat of the Conservers for the Red Coat of the Liberators. Thus did the cunning Tripe remain in power when his friends fell. Immediately, Tripe, to show his ardour for his new party, put forth all the power of his ability and raised so much and such beautiful and Balmy Winds for the Liberators that they marvelled at his power, and to aid him in his art they presented him for his uses a cunningly contrived Organ with many keys and stops, and capable of playing tunes and airs to please everyone, and they called this wonderful organ “The Paps.” And now Tripe began to think he was the whole thing, and that without him and his organ the Liberators and even Wilfridus himself were Small Potatoes; and he ground his organ to suit himself and played wicked and mischievous airs thereon which not only stirred up the Conservers, but annoyed many High Liberators. He also put on his “Chapeau Parlant” and visited strange countries, and the country of his forefathers and he talked through his Chapeau much rot and vanity, and he ran off his trolley and went away up in the air and thought he was a balloon and that the whole world was watching his flight; but some good staunch Liberators who were disgusted with his antics fantastique gave him the knife so that his wind was let out where his sense had gone. He fell and fell hard.

Thus did the cunning Tripe fall and pull others down with him.

* * * * *

_Moral_--???

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Dream not; while thou dreameth another moveth.

WILLIE

HOW HE LIVED AND WHY HE DIED

In the first place Willie was unfortunate enough to be born, in which circumstances he was not unique. He was unfortunate also in the circumstance that he was born of poor, but dishonest parents, of that class who spend their lives in a useless struggle to keep up appearances and prevent their poverty being known and talked about.

While Willie was unable to talk, the circumstances of his parents had no effect on him; when nice people called on his mamma and said how delighted they would be to see the baby, he was playing on the floor in one garment and none the less happy that he had no clothes fit to be seen in and that the nice people had to be told things that were not--that he was out with the nurse, or asleep or ill. He was fortunate in this.

By and by Willie grew to an age when his surrounding circumstances began to impress him more or less, and one of the first impressions he received was that his parents went to a horrible amount of trouble to appear better off than they were.

When Willie began to go to school he had come to several conclusions about things and one of the conclusions he had come to was, that if people took so much trouble, as he saw his parents do, to appear well off when poorly off, it must be, if not absolutely wrong at least a grave fault, to be poor, and a fault to be ashamed of, which of course it is.

Consequently, Willie argued, it is a man’s first business to become well off. Seek first dollars and all things shall be added unto you. Many children have this idea and some never get over it, Willie never got over it.

Willie heard that “anything can be bought,” that “every man has his price,” that “a man’s best friend is his money,” and a great many other equally wise and true saws.

So it came about quite naturally that Willie set the dollar up in his mind as something to be venerated, and overlooked the fact (quite naturally too) that the dollar is a means to an end not an end.

Willie’s parents were of the opinion that the next best thing to having dollars is to make a bold pretense of having them and Willie was too young to criticize their judgment.

Willie’s father was of the opinion that the most important thing to attend to in this life was the getting of more dollars than you need, and that next in importance to that was the adding to your surplus. Willie saw that his father was a failure in his own eyes and he saw the mighty struggle he made to hide his failure.

Willie was unfortunate in being bright enough to observe these things and not bright enough to judge wherein they were poor philosophy.

When Willie was old enough he went into a broker’s office and there he observed that a great many were the same kind of people as his pa and his ma, and he made up his mind that he had to become rich to escape the miseries that trying to be SOMEBODY on NOTHING entailed.

Willie had youthful inclinations, but the fear of poverty had been so drubbed into him that he curbed all such, promising himself that he would follow them when he got rich.

Ten years with the brokers gave Willie no liking for the business or affection for his employers, but he never dreamed of risking having idle time on his hands earning no money by throwing up a sure thing for an uncertainty.

He thought of marriage at this time, but put the thought aside by promising himself the joys of a happy marriage when he got rich. His close attention to business and saving and cautious ways gave him a high place in the estimation of his employers, who now and then “let him into good things” and Willie’s bank account began to swell and his heart to shrink. He had never set up in his mind a definite figure to represent riches, but he had an indefinite idea of something in the neighbourhood of a million or so. Time did not wait for Willie to get rich, it sped on. Willie became a partner in his firm, became worth a million, two million, three million. He buried the other members of his firm, settled with the widows cheap and became “THE FIRM” worth more millions. He forgot all about youthful pleasures, all about marriage, all about life, all about death, all about everything but dollars; dollars claimed all his time and thought, everything became trivial except dollars. Instead of Willie owning the dollars the dollars began to own him.

Close attention to the business of caring for, watching and nursing dollars for so long a time at last told so on Willie’s health that he broke down, his liver, his kidneys, his heart and his lungs and other unnecessary appendages refused to do business even for dollars.

Doctors were called in.

Doctors said, “Willie must rest.”

But Willie had never rested, he did not know how to rest.

“Enjoy yourself,” said the doctors, but Willie had never enjoyed himself.

“No more brain work,” said the doctors, but Willie’s brain had gained the momentum of constant habit and did business on its own account. Willie became morbid, brooding over his case; he could not stop his brain from thinking dollars, he could not satisfy himself that life was a success--so he blew his dollar-thinking brains out with an old shot gun.

A jury sat on Willie and decided that if a man with Willie’s millions did not care to live, suicide was justifiable--and commendable.

* * * * *

_Moral_--Don’t envy the millionaire; he gives up a lot for what he gets.

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THE LOST DOLLAR

I lost a dollar bill one day, it wasn’t much, It wouldn’t even pay the interest on one small debt, And yet it made me that dodgasted sore, I dreamed about it for a week or more. And if I went to buy a tie or collar, I’d think what more I could have had, Had I not lost that dollar. I cut my smoking down, reduced my drinks, And padded my accounts with skill, Hoping to catch up with that lost bill; But no matter how I’d cut and scrape, Figure it as I would in any shape, I still remained behind that cussed piastre, It loomed up disproportionate like a huge disaster, Until one day after a plenteous dinner, Feeling quite satisfied as any sinner, I fell to thinking of discounts and commissions, And laid the ghost of that lost buck By charging it to Foreign Missions. The virtue of the act gave me relief, Balanced my cash and stayed my grief, Now every date whereat I write A charge to _Foreign_ Missions, I know, That I’ve been out at night.

THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMANDMENTS

I

Thou shalt to the office come Every day in the week but one.

II

Thou shalt daily write a lot Whether it is read or not.

III

Thou must not loaf except by stealth, Work is better for thy health.

IV

Sharp upon the stroke of noon Thou mayst lunch, but get back soon.

V

Simple and cheap must be thy fare A sup of Ottawa, a breath of air.

VI

Thou may’st snooze incident’ly But do thy snoring very gently.

VII

Hasten thou at four o’clock But do it slowly without shock.

VIII

At four-forty brush the clothes, Wash the hands and blow the nose.

IX

At five thou mayst steal away Without warning or delay.

X

Thou mayst draw thy modest wage When the month half turns the page.

XI

The Minister thou shalt not kill Or curse the Civil Service Bill.

XII

When old and dull as any post Gladly give thou up the ghost. Then to heaven thou’lt surely go Having worked and suffered so.

LOVE AND THE PHILOSOPHER

Once upon a time there was a happy Philosopher. He was not young nor yet was he old. The callowness of youth had passed and he was in his prime; in fact, he could not have been a philosopher without being in his prime. He had gained the sobriquet of Philosopher for the reason that he was known to possess an uncommon habit of taking facts, those stubborn things, and turning them over in his mind, examining them and coming to logical conclusions about them, but it was not the dignity of his name or his happy peculiarity that made him happy. Philosophy is a very satisfactory kind of thing, but its pursuit does not bring happiness, rather is it a drag upon happiness; any fool can be happy, but a Philosopher has to have reason therefor. Philosophy is a useful kind of break, preventing happiness from getting too hot and misery from getting too cold. The Philosopher was happy because he had been smitten, not smote with a club, but by a girl; he loved a girl and believed he was loved because the girl told him he was, which is a good reason for any fellow, but should not be for a Philosopher.

The Philosopher had never before enjoyed the luxury of love, so of course he knew nothing about it; it is one of those things the less you know about it the more enjoyable it is.

The Philosopher could hardly be expected to have the blind unreasoning love that attacks college freshmen. His love was as strong and ruling an emotion as a man can suffer; but it was tempered with reason. He saw the girl as she was; he saw her shining qualities, her sweetness, generosity, and truthfulness, dimmed perhaps a little by a will of her own. Truly the girl sometimes spoke without thought and her mind furniture did not exactly match the furniture of the Philosopher’s mind; but he flattered himself that he could alter such small matters and even looked forward to the time when he could commence moulding her character to his exact liking. He loved her no less that he appreciated her faults; a girl would not be perfect without faults; she is not like a race-horse. One idle afternoon the Philosopher sat in his study enjoying himself with fancy mental pictures of the girl while he patiently waited till the clock indicated that he might go to the girl’s house where, in his imagination, he saw her waiting as anxious as he. The clock’s hands moved deliberately forward and finally came to the hour the Philosopher impatiently waited for, just the same as they would have done in any case. Time is the only thing that can laugh at love.

Time having liberated the Philosopher, he sped towards the locus of the girl. As he approached it he became agitated. He smiled to himself, sighed sighs; his pulse and heart increased their rates; he blew his nose, examined his cuffs and gloves, fingered his cravat, and looked about to see if anyone was observing him. While he was thus pluming himself he received a severe shock. He could hardly believe his eyes, but being a Philosopher, of course he did believe them, and what they revealed to him was--the girl and another lady coming out of her home and taking a direction opposite to his. Here was a fact and the Philosopher immediately began to turn it over in his mind and examine it, at the same time quickening his gait in pursuit of the girl. The examination of the bare fact without cross-examination of the girl was eminently unsatisfactory. The girl knew he was coming at a certain hour, yet at that hour she went elsewhere. She might have been unavoidably called away, he told himself; but allowing that she had been, he argued: “What can excuse her for failing to look in the direction she knew I must come, to discover if I was near?” It seemed a small thing to notice against a girl, yet it seemed to demonstrate that at the time the girl was not thinking of the Philosopher and the disappointment he was going to receive by her act. This argued thoughtlessness for other people’s feelings and a large development of egoism and vanity--“Yes,” said the girl side of the Philosopher’s mind, “at first blush it would seem so, but perhaps she is not going out for a long time, and perhaps she has left word for you or expected to return in time to meet you.” Thereupon the Philosopher suspended judgment, but he had received a bad impression. He hurried up and overtook the girl.

“You might have waited for me,” said the Philosopher, as he lifted his hat.