CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES

By Ambrose Bierce

Assembled in the parlor

Of the place of last resort,

The smiler and the snarler

And the guests of every sort —

The elocution chap

With rhetoric on tap;

The mimic and the funny dog;

The social sponge; the money-hog;

Vulgarian and dude;

And the prude;

The adiposing dame

With pimply face aflame;

The kitten-playful virgin —

Vergin’ on to fifty years;

The solemn-looking sturgeon

Of a firm of auctioneers;

The widower flirtatious;

The widow all too gracious;

The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath.

One assassin picks the banjo, and another picks his teeth.