From the New York Tribune, July 3, 1915. By Grantland Rice.
A weary female stood in court before a judge quite grim;
And looking up with abject mien she turned and spoke to him;
“Your honor”—said she with a voice that bordered on a sigh—
“I’d like to get a quick divorce”—and tears stood in her eye;
The Judge looked down upon her just a moment ere he said
“What has your husband done that you are sorry that you wed?
Can it be that he beats you—or holds out half his pay?”
Whereat the female wept again and these sad words did say—
“He only talks of stymies and of dormies—
He only talks of ‘hooks’ that lost a bet;
He plays his golf all day
And at night he raves away
Of putts he orter had—but didn’t get;
He says he orter had a sixty-seven—
But the hundred that he took was far from right—
I don’t care if he should play
This here golluf every day
If he wouldn’t play it over every night.”
The stern judge thought a moment with a frown upon his face—
“I hate divorces,” he replied, “but not in this here case;
I know the gunman’s often wrong—and yet he has his side;
And while I sometimes jug a thief—I often let him slide;
But there are limits to all crime—and one or two so raw
That fitting punishment is yet beyond the printed law—”
But when he murmured “twenty years”—the golfer’s hair turned gray
And now the wife is kinder sad that these words she did say.
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