 You know Don Marquis was a playwright and he was a columnist and a poet. He was too busy to do interviews So he would send me up to do interviews too. I was doing his job. So I Found a rather creative way to carry this out case in point boss I Went and interviewed the mummy of the Egyptian pharaoh in the Metropolitan Museum as you bade me to do What hole my regal leather face says I Greetings little scatterfooted scarab says he Kingly has been says I what was your ambition when you had any? insignificant and journalistic little insect said the royal crackling In my tender prime. I was too dignified to have anything as vulgar as ambition We rah rah boys in the city set used to spend our time feeding the i-bix's and Ordering pyramids sent home to try on but If I had my life to live over again I would give dignity the royal razz and hire myself out to work In a brewery Old tannin tarry says I I detect in your speech the overtones of melancholy Yes, I am sad said the majestic mackerel I am as sad as the song of the Sudanese jackal who was wailing for the blood-red moon He cannot reach and rip and what are you brooding was such a wistful wishfulness there in the silences confide in me Your imperial pretzel says I I Brood on beer my scampering whiffle snoot on beer says he my sympathies are with your royal dryness Says I Little pest says he you must be respectful in the presence of a mighty desolation little Archie 40 centuries of thirst look down upon you Oh by Isis and by Osiris said the princely raisin by Pish and Ptash and Ptah By the sacred books parenbrew and all the gods who rule from the upper cat erect of the Nile to the Delta of the duodenum I Am dry I Am as dry as the next morning mouth of a dissipated desert as dry as the hooves of the camels of Timbuktu Little fuzzy face. I am as dry as the heart of a sandstorm at high noon in hell I have been lying here and there for 4,000 years was silicon in my esophagus and gravel in my gizzard thinking thinking thinking thinking of beer Divine drought says I Imperial fritter continue to think there is no law against that in this country old salt codfish Not if you keep quiet about it Not yet What country is this? Ask the poor prune Your reverend juicelessness This is a beerless country says I well well My political opponents always said I would wind up in hell It seems they had the right dope And with those hopeless words the unfortunate Residuum gave a great cough of despair and turned to dust and debris just right in front of my face It being the only time I ever actually saw anybody put the cough into sarcophagus. Oh Oh No, sorry, I guess it's time to bring back me here to bow