I gave them gravy, and hokum,
And when they ate it up I came through
With the old jasbo,
Than which there is nothing so efficacious
In vaudeville, polite or otherwise. 
The first thing I did I hollered for more dough,
And Poli says: 
“That’s what I get for feeding you meat,
But you are a riot all right, all right,
So I guess you are on for more kale.” 
I kept getting better. 
I got so’s I could follow any act at all
And get my laughs. 
And he who getteth his laughs
Is greater than he who taketh a city. 
At last the Palace Theatre sent for me
And I signed up for a week. 
They kept me two. 
I am a headliner;
I stand at the corner of Forty-seventh Street
And Little Old Broadway;
Throw out my chest,
Call the agents and vaudeville magnates
By their first names. 
I am a headliner with a home in Freeport.

MURDOCK PEMBERTON

THE SCREEN

From midnight till the following noon
I stand in shadow,
Just a splotch of white,
Unnoted by the cleaning crew
Who’ve spent their hours of toil
That I might live again. 
Yet they hold no reverence for my charms,
And if they pause amid their work
They do not glance at me;
All their admiration, all their awe,
Is for the gold and scarlet trappings of the home
That’s built to house my wonders;
Or for the gorgeous murals all around,
Which really, after all,
Were put in place as most lame substitutes,
Striving to soothe the patron’s ire
For those few moments when my face is dark. 
Yes, men have built a palace sheltering me,
And as the endless ocean washes on its stretch of beach
The tides of people flow to me.

All things I am to everyone;
The newsboys, shopgirls,
And all starved souls
Who’ve clutched at life and missed,
See in my magic face,
The lowly rise to fame and palaces,
See virtue triumph every time
And rich and wicked justly flayed. 
Old men are tearful
When I show them what they might have been. 
And others, not so old,
Bask in the sunshine of my fairy tales. 
The lovers see new ways to woo;
And wives see ways to use old brooms. 
Some nights I see the jeweled opera crowd
Who seem aloof but inwardly are fond of me
Because I’ve caught the gracious beauty of their pets. 
Then some there are who watch my changing face
To catch new history’s shadow
As it falls from day to day. 
And at the noiseless tramp of soldier feet,
In time to music of the warring tribes,
The shadow men across my face
Seem living with the hope or dread
Of those who watch them off to wars.