You
see it was this way: She had a boob on her staff who was paying her his
devoted attention. According to her statistics that's all he ever did
pay for. Well, he commenced doing advance work about a present he was
going to give her until he got poor Alla to thinking that it was nothing
less than an automobile, and she treated him accordingly. One morning a
messenger boy makes his entrance into the flat and hands her a book. Can
you beat that? The only thing that kept Alia from foaming at the mouth
was because she was combing her Dutch braid. It--the book--was called a
Rubaiyat by Omar Quinine, or something like that. This Omar party never
wrote a comic opera in his life. But Alla wasn't discouraged, for she
looked through every page in hopes of finding a Clearing House
certificate, but not a leaf stirred. All she came across was a marked
verse that went something like this:
"A book of verse underneath a bough,
A Jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me sitting in the wilderness--
Oh, wilderness is Paradise enow.
"Did you ever hear of such a short sport? Wanted to buy it by the keg
and go sit under a tree in Bronx Park. As soon as Alla run out of
language she sat down and in less than three hours doped out an answer.
I got it here on the back of her laundry list:
"A book of verse is not what I can use,
But give me, if still my love is thine,
A wine list from which to pick and choose.
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