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).