For years he was wedded to danger,
To panic and terror a stranger;
He had hairbreath escapes
From all sorts of scrapes,
He weathered the wildest of storms.
He clambered up perilous passes,
And coasted across the crevasses;
He was chased by a shark,
And snared by a snark —
Faced death in its fearfulest forms.

He eluded without the least trouble
The fool-driven automobubble,
He knew how to duck
The trolley and truck,
The ambulance, cycle, and stage;
And daily, from sunup to sundown,
He escaped fifty times being run down;
He showed to all wheels
A clean pair of heels,
With a sprightliness rare for his age.

But one day his fortune forsook him,
And a horrible fate overtook him:
He was suddenly shocked
And as suddenly knocked
To the midst of the proximate week.
When he came to — oh climax ironic! —
He found — oh dénouement sardonic! —
That the cause of his fall —
Oh, wormwood and gall! —
Was a pushcart propelled by a Greek!