With paternal pride I used to glow

When the neighbours dropped their pleasant hints

How like Daddy Reginald would grow,

But to-day they took his finger-prints;

Now I am convinced they spoke in haste—

Such expressions show a lack of taste.

Operator was a kindly man,

Formerly a sergeant of police;

Dipped our Reggie's digits in a pan

Filled with printers' ink and oil and grease,

pressed them on a card and soothed his moans,

Saying "Diddums" in official tones.

Mother stood and gazed upon the thing,

Lovingly as doting mothers do;

Asked, "Does Reggie's hieroglyphic bring

Memories of famous men to you—

Men who, having made their lives sublime,

Left their thumb-prints on the sands of time?

"Will it be his destiny to write

Or to earn a living with his brains?

Will he share a 'loop' with Grahame White?

Do his 'arches' pair with those of Baines?

Is there similarity between

Reggie's 'whorls' and those of M. Massine?"

Operator coughed behind his hand,

Moved his feet and shook his hoary head,

Thrust his fingers in his bellyband,

Then at last reluctantly he said,

"I've encountered in the course of biz

Many prints that much resembled his.

"One, I mind me, such impressions made;

P'r'aps you never heard of Ginger Hicks,

Him what done in uncle with a spade

Down in Canning Town in ninety-six?

Ginger was a wrong 'un from the fust;

As a child he bellowed fit to bust.

"Then there was another, something like,

Got a lifer seven years ago;

Surely you remember Mealy Mike,

Robbery with violence at Bow?

Michael's thumb-print, though of larger size,

Was the spit of Reggie's otherwise.

"Then again his lines could be compared—"

Mother snatched her precious up and fled,

Pausing once to ask him how he dared

Put such notions in um's little head.

Her departure mid a storm of kissing

Put the lid on further reminiscing.