Explore "Inconsistency" by O. Henry on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Call a pretty girl a witch / And she'll do her best to charm you. / Tell an old maid she's a witch, / And she certainly will harm you. / Thus you see how hard it is to please them all.
Call a pretty maiden "Puss," / And she'll archly smile upon you. / Call an ancient one a "cat," / She will grab an axe and run you. / The same name will not fit them all, at all.
If you call your girl a "mouse," / She will think it cute and pretty. / If unto an aged spinster / You say "rats," you have our pity. / Thus you see you need not try to please them all.
"In a lighthouse by the sea" is what the opera company sang to a forty-dollar audience in Galveston.
"Yes," said the tramp as he accepted the dime and made for the lunch counter, "I always hollers when I'm hit and I always hits a man when I'm holler. "