Classic Poem

There's a man that I am looking for, and I'll meet him by and by:
I'll know him by his furtive smirk and by his shifty eye,
I'll know him by his sidelong looks and by his hangdog air;
And when I meet that evil man, there'll be some trouble there.

I'll lure him from his den with guile and fill him up with beer,
And draw him out and take him down until my case is clear:
I'll tell him cunning lies the while we pledge the loving cup —
I'll want some notes to write a sketch — but he won't set it up.

I'll lure him to some friends of mine who live bohemian quite,
And introduce him by his name. He won't go home that night.
They've got a camp up Lane Cove way, and got a boat to pull,
Where shades are dark and sharks are fierce and fairly plentiful.

He's ruined reputations that were builded by the pen,
He's driven to perdition deep the curseful souls of men,
He has made sober fathers drunk who'd ne'er drank in their lives;
And he's made upright citizens assault their startled wives.

He makes the mildest kind of men who never learned to swear
Destroy their work, and strive to lift their own selves by the hair.
He makes the sanest citizens whose consciences are clear
Jump round and gibber at their friends and claw the atmosphere.

(And do it in defiance of all known and human laws,
And sudden, and apparently without the slightest cause —
Then take his hat and leave the house with features set and grim,
Must upset friends and relatives who are not " in the swim "
They sometimes send a constable to keep an eye on him.

He makes us say, in black and white, the lies we didn't say;
He makes us pray when we would curse and curse when we would pray.
He makes us grim where we should laugh, and gay where we are grim;
He makes us slander life-long friends! and I am after him.

I haunt the high composing room, its dim, religious light,
I go there often in the day, and sometimes in the night.
I go down to the printing room and desperately dare
The letter-press machinist, lest my man be lurking there.

(Some writers blame the Bully staff, but I'm not one of those,
There's not a member that would touch a writer's verse or prose —
They mostly have a priestly look, although they are not " bland " ,
While some have such expressions as you'll find in Wowser Land.)

He makes you praise your enemies, or raise a false alarm,
And always gets his fiend's work in where it will do most harm:
And — yes, insults your dearest girl where " sugar " is required,
And makes you seem ridiculous when you are most inspired.

He makes — O Hell! your rivals laugh and your admirers frown
And turns your blazing politics stern-first and upside down;
He makes your best friends jumping wild and your opponents glad,
And you a Blithering Idiot, a Turn-Coat Cur, or mad!

And if you haven't guessed his name I'll tell you straight away:
It's Mr Printer's-Error and I'll murder him some day!
Mis-ter Prin-ter's-Blanky-Error!
And I'll have his scalp some day.