SONGS OF THE ROAD
65
'Stow it, Bendy! Left the ring! Mighty spry of you!
Didn't everybody know the ring was leavin' you.'
Bendy fairly sweated as he stood above and prayed,
'Look down, O Lord, and grip me with a strangle hold!' he said.
'Fix me with a strangle hold! Put a stop on me!
I'm slippin', Lord, I'm slippin' and I'm clingin' hard to Thee!'
But the roughs they kept on chaffin' and the uproar it was such
That the preacher in the pulpit might be talkin' double Dutch,
