Trying to find a poem, said to have been in a Canadian grade school reader

Cafe Society
1

A buddy of mine has asked if I can identify a poem that he remembers from grade school. It sort of rings a bell with me, but I can’t pin it down.

Here’s the description he gave me:

And so I turn to the Teeming Millions for your collective wisdom. Can anyone identify the poem?

2

It kind of sounds like Stephen Leacock’s short story “My Financial Career”

http://students.iiit.ac.in/~nirnimesh/Literature/MyFinancialCareer.htm

3

If I had to guess, I’d say odds are decent it’s a poem by Robert Service, who was a) Canadian, b) one of the most widely read poets of his day, and c) a bank clerk in a small town. Anyway, that’s as far as I got. It’s hard to find the actual poem, because he wrote so many.

4

Sounds like a conflation of two poems:

The Average by W.H. Auden, and Warren Pryor by Alden Nowlan.

IIRC, they were on the same page or back to back in that old reader.

5

Rube, I think you’ve got it. I’ll forward your links and see.

(Apparently there’s a tenner riding on whether I could identify it. Ray E. may have bet against me, the dog! I will of course disclose that I sought help, but as with all legal matters, it’s not always having the answer, but knowing how to get the answer that counts. :stuck_out_tongue: )

LionelHutz405, I wondered about that, but my buddy said it’s definitely a poem.)