Oh! he's rippin', rippin'! A tailor's block set skippin', He's all bad debts and cigarettes and bets and kümmel-nippin', His head's without a grain of sense, his hand he's got no grip in, He drags his walk and tags his talk with "Rippin', rippin', rippin'"!
His faultless dress is the result of unremitting study, He's quite the perfect "Johnny," never messed and never muddy, His coat is always baggy and his hat is always shiny, His boots are always varnished to their pointed toes so tiny. His shirts, his ties, his walking-sticks are marvels to remember, And with the seasons change from January to December. He always wears a "buttonhole," and in a huge carnation Of hideous hue 'twixt green and blue finds special delectation.
He has a language of his own which he elects to talk in; He cuts his final g's and speaks of shootin', huntin', walkin'; With slipshod phrase and hybrid slang his speeches fairly bristle, And vulgarisms "smart" he loves as donkeys love a thistle. He'll lay "a hun_derd_ poun_d_," or say "he ain't," quite uncompunctive; He systematically spurns the use of the subjunctive. He knows "how the best people talk," and quite ignores the clamour Of any "dash'd low nonsense," such as euphony and grammar.
He's great upon the music-halls, can tell you what befalls there; He drops in at the Gaiety, and ornaments the stalls there; He knows each vapid joke by heart, and wishes that he knew more; They quite conform in quality to _his_ idea of humour. He skims the sportin' papers, and devours the shillin' thriller; He counts the bard of comic songs a cut above a SCHILLER-- In fact, they scoff at poets in his very wide-awake sphere, And in his secret soul he has a fine contempt for SHAKSPEARE.
He dawdles dully through his day in quite the latest fashion-- A round of folly minus wit, and vice without its passion. At five he walks "the Burlington," in which esteemed Arcade he Meets various of his chosen chums--the silly and the shady; Then to the Berkeley or Savoy at eight o'clock or later, Much over-dressed, to over-dine, and over-tip the waiter. The theatre next, and last his club (the which he takes delight in), To prove his pluck by "lookin' on at other Johnnies fightin'."