The Literary Life
Vanity Fair (UK), October 6, 1904
(A Russian journalist, unable to induce an editor to accept his work, adopted recently the ingenious expedient of shooting him.)
Air: “The Sons of the Prophets.”
AN editor’s life’s full of danger and strife,
And it isn’t all skittles and beer.
To prove what I state, I propose to relate
The tale of the Bulbul Ameer.
An editor bold was this Bulbul, I’m told;
He’d reject an MS. with a sneer,
He was bitterly hard on each tentative bard,
Was Abdul the Bulbul Ameer.
There are writers in scores on the Muscovite shores,
In the land that is ruled by the Czar;
But few had such skill in directing the quill
As Ivan Petrusky Skivar.
He could imitate Kipling, write verses and prose,
He could pen you a personal par;
In fact, the success of the Muscovite Press
Was Ivan Petrusky Skivar.
One morning Petrusky a story devised
In the popular magazine vein,
And sent the MS. to the Bulbul’s address:
The latter returned it again.
But your genuine journalist seldom is damped
If an article fails to appear,
So he sent off, enclosing an envelope (stamped),
A second to Abdul Ameer.
This too was returned. Ever hopeful, though spurned,
He despatched on the instant a third:
To his grief and amaze, after waiting some days,
A similar sequel occurred.
He tried him with articles, essays, and verse,
Some orthodox, others bizarre:
Each week in a stack they would always come back
To Ivan Petrusky Skivar.
The Muscovite frowned; and at last, as he found
The proceedings beginning to pall,
He tapped at his brow: then, “I have it, I trow,
There’s only one way—I must call.
We shall never be free of this worry and fuss
Till I’ve seen him in person, that’s clear.”
So he took his six-shooter, jumped into a ’bus,
And called on the Bulbul Ameer.
“Young man,” said Bulbul, “your effusions are dull,
And your style and construction are queer;
I don’t like your verse, and your stories are worse:
It’s no good your sending ’em here.
In brief, they are not—Here, hi, help! I am shot!”
“Precisely,” said Ivan, “you are.
It was meant as a hint that I wish you to print
The work of Petrusky Skivar.”
There’s a grave where the Oxus flows silent and slow:
It is covered with creepers and grass;
There’s a stone at one end, and—a gift from a friend—
A wreath in a case made of glass.
And the travellers stay, ere they go on their way,
To drop in their pity a tear,
As they see on the stone where the grass has not grown:
“Hic Jacet
A. Bulbul Ameer.”
There are writers in scores on the Muscovite shores,
In the lands that are ruled by the Czar;
But few have such skill in the use of the quill
As Ivan Petrusky Skivar.
He imitates Kipling, writes verses and prose,
And turns out the personal par;
In fact, the success of the Muscovite Press
Is Ivan Petrusky Skivar.
Published unsigned in Vanity Fair; entered by Wodehouse in Money Received for Literary Work.
A parody of the 1877 poem Abdul Abulbul Amir by Percy French (1854–1920).