Abraham LIncthun (@AbrahamLincthun)

SMOKING YOUR WAY THRU THE BIBLE The Ballad of Salvation Bill PART 1 by Robert Service 'Twas in the bleary middle of the hard-boiled Arctic night, I was lonesome as a loon, so if you can, Imagine my emotions of amazement and delight When I bumped into that Missionary Man. He was lying lost and dying in the moon's unholy leer, And frozen from his toes to finger-tips' The famished wolf-pack ringed him; but he didn't seem to fear, As he pressed his ice-bond Bible to his lips. 'Twas the limit of my trap-line, with the cabin miles away, And every step was like a stab of pain; But I packed him like a baby, and I nursed him night and day, Till I got him back to health and strength again. So there we were, benighted in the shadow of the Pole, And he might have proved a priceless little pard, If he hadn't got to worrying about my blessed soul, And a-quotin' me his Bible by the yard. Now there was I, a husky guy, whose god was Nicotine, With a "coffin-nail" a fixture in my mug; I rolled them in the pages of a pulpwood magazine, And hacked them with my jack-knife from the plug. For, Oh to know the bliss and glow that good tobacco means, Just live among the everlasting ice . . . So judge my horror when I found my stock of magazines Was chewed into a chowder by the mice. A woeful week went by and not a single pill I had, Me that would smoke my forty in a day; I sighed, I swore, I strode the floor; I felt I would go mad: The gospel-plugger watched me with dismay. My brow was wet, my teeth were set, my nerves were rasping raw; And yet that preacher couldn't understand: So with despair I wrestled there - when suddenly I saw The volume he was holding in his hand. Then something snapped inside my brain, and with an evil start The wolf-man in me woke to rabid rage. "I saved your lousy life," says I; "so show you have a heart, And tear me out a solitary page." He shrank and shrivelled at my words; his face went pewter white; 'Twas just as if I'd handed him a blow: And then . . . and then he seemed to swell, and grow to Heaven's height, And in a voice that rang he answered: "No!" I grabbed my loaded rifle and I jabbed it to his chest: "Come on, you shrimp, give me that Book," says I. Well sir, he was a parson, but he stacked up with the best, And for grit I got to hand it to the guy. "If I should let you desecrate this Holy Word," he said, "My soul would be eternally accurst; So go on, Bill, I'm ready. You can pump me full of lead And take it, but - you've got to kill me first." Now I'm no foul assassin, though I'm full of sinful ways, And I knew right there the fellow had me beat; For I felt a yellow mongrel in the glory of his gaze, And I flung my foolish firearm at his feet, Then wearily I turned away, and dropped upon my bunk, And there I lay and blubbered like a kid. "Forgive me, pard," says I at last, "for acting like a skunk, But hide the blasted rifle..." Which he did.