Around the backwoods I came aboard a camp meeting but was barking up the wrong tree. When they bounced me they handed me a blue envelope that looked bogus, a bluff. The boss showed me the big stick and a cop said cut it out. Cheese it I said and took the buggy. At the creek I was down to corn and crackers but no booze. Dead broke and a deadhead, no dough, I expect it was a fizzle. Now it's fall, my dress is fierce, I need gas. A gangster gladhanded me and gave me some glad rags. I guess a guy goes from gutter snipe to hayseed and buries the hatchet. I quit the hobo rails and took a hike to improve myself. I'm homely, no hootch, but not a hoodlum. Johnny-on-the-spot or joyriding, I don't knock it. Let's go, I'm a light fingered loafer low on the long green but nimble with lumber. I made a pile, I was the main guy, I was making a bee-line but now I'm mending fences. I had pull, then I got pinched. Now I'm a picayune punk trying to pull a leg. It's quite a blizzard I reckon, right smart. I'm a rube who hit rock bottom right away. A scab that salts the mine is a scalawag. I rattled the shack and skedaddled like a scofflaw, small potatoes. But I didn't squeal. Pull up stakes squatter, you might strike oil. I'm a tenderfoot in my own fate. On the trolley I check my ticker but pass the tavern by, it's all up in the air. Vamoose, whoop it up, or wilt, I'm a wind bag and a wire puller. (from the Dictionary of Americanisms)