Read "The Good Rich Man" by G.K. Chesterton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Mr. Mandragon, the Millionaire, he wouldn't have wine or wife, / He couldn't endure complexity: he lived the Simple Life. / He ordered his lunch by megaphone in manly, simple tones, / And used all his motors for canvassing voters, and twenty telephones; / Besides a dandy little machine, / Cunning and neat as ever was seen, / With a hundred pulleys and cranks between, / Made of metal and kept quite clean, / To hoist him out of his healthful bed on every day of his life, / And wash him and dress him and shave him and brush him / -- to live the Simple Life.
Mr. Mandragon was most refined and quietly, neatly dressed, / Say all the American newspapers that know refinement best; / Quiet and neat the hat and hair and the coat quiet and neat, / A trouser worn upon either leg, while boots adorn the feet; / And not, as any one would expect, / A Tiger's Skin all striped and specked, / And a Peacock Hat with the tail erect, / A scarlet tunic with sunflowers decked, / Which might have had a more marked effect, / And pleased the pride of a weaker man that yearned for wine or wife; / But Fame and the Flagon, for Mr. Mandragon / -- obscured the Simple Life.