Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/26

He worked so very hard indeed, the police dropped in one day,
And for a year behind the bars they put him safe away.

So dark and silent now, their home; they’d gone—I wondered where,
Till in a laundry near I saw a child with shining hair;
And o’er the tub a strapping wench, her arms in soapy foam;
Lo! it was Angeline the gosse, and Gigolette the môme.
And so I kept an eye on them and saw that all went right,
Until at last came Julot home, half crazy with delight.
And when he’d kissed them both, says he: “I’ve had my fill this time.
I’m on the honest now, I am; I’m all fed up with crime.
You mark my words, the page I turn is going to be clean,
I swear it on the head of her, my little Angeline.”

And so, to finish up my tale, this morning as I strolled
Along the boulevard I heard a voice I knew of old.
I saw a rosy little man with walrus-like mustache…
I stopped, I stared…. By all the gods! ’twas Julot the apache.