Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/25

And then one night he dropped the mask; his eyes were sick with dread,
And when I offered him a smoke he groaned and shook his head:
“I’m all upset; it’s Angeline… she’s covered with a rash…
She’ll maybe die, my little gosse,” cried Julot the apache.

But Angeline, I joy to say, came through the test all right,
Though Julot, so they tell me, watched beside her day and night.
And when I saw him next, says he: “Come up and dine with me.
We’ll buy a beefsteak on the way, a bottle and some brie.”
And so I had a merry night within his humble home,
And laughed with Angeline the gosse and Gigolette the môme.
And every time that Julot used a word the least obscene,
How Gigolette would frown at him and point to Angeline:
Oh, such a little innocent, with hair of silken floss,
I do not wonder they were proud of Angeline the gosse.
And when her arms were round his neck, then Julot says to me:
“I must work harder now, mon vieux, since I’ve to work for three.”