Let those three Nothings content you I pray,

Say nothing yourself; leave me “Nothing to Say.”

From time immemorial, people of fashion

  Have been the target of poets and penny wits,

And been lampooned without stint or compassion,

  From Dan to Beersheba—from Dublin to Dennevitz;

And our now-a-day rhymsters, taking the cue,

Have aimed all their shots at the Fifth Avenue,

Till the clever author of “Nothing to Wear,”

Fired his broadside at Madison Square.

Now I don’t consider this sort of thing personal,

 I’m not a bit of a dandy or fop;

But the seed it is constantly sowing, is worse than all

  Others, and bears a most plentiful crop;

For it all goes to strengthen the popular fallacy

That, because a man lives in a “brown stone palace” he

Must be a miser, a rogue and a knave,

Without soul enough to condemn or to save—

Page 28.

That a broadcloth coat argues sin, if not felony;

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