VERSE

Verse (A la Alice) by Murray Leinster

If things had happened quite my way,
We would not be in this cafe.

If you had not insisted on it,
I would gladly have forgone it.

But you announced an appetite
And said you always dined at night.

But you need not have ordered duck.
It's that which makes me out of luck.

So I must tell you I'm not able
To pay for what is on the table.

So when you've eaten all you want,
They'll throw us from this restaurant.

-- from Saucy Stories, May 1919