The Great Newspaper Editor to his Subordinate

Mr Smith, Mr Smith,
haven’t I told you to take the pith
and marrow and substance out of all
the articles passing beneath your scrawl?

And now look here what you’ve gone and done!
You’ve told them that life isn’t really much fun,
when you know that they’ve got to think that they’re happy,
as happy as happy, Oh, so happy, you sappy.

Think of the effect on Miss Harrison
when she reads that her life isn’t really much fun.
She’ll take off her specs, and she’ll put down the paper
as if it was giving off poison vapour.

And she’ll avoid it; she’ll go and order
The Morning Smile, sure that it will afford her
comfort and cheer, sure that it will tell her
she’s a marv’lous, delicious, high-spirited feller.

You must chop up each article, make it pappy
and easy to swallow; always tell them they’re happy,
suggest that they’re spicy, yet how pure they are,
and what a sense of true humour they’ve got, ha-ha!

Mr Smith, Mr Smith,
have you still to learn that pith
and marrow and substance are sure to be
indigestible to Miss Ponsonby!

Mr Smith, Mr Smith,
if you stay in my office, you’ve got to be kith
and kin with Miss Jupson, whose guts are narrow
and can’t pass such things as substance and marrow.

Mr Smith, Mr Smith,
consider Miss Wilks, or depart forthwith.
For the British Public, once more be it said,
is summed up in a nice, narrow-gutted old maid.