From the September 30, 1893, issue of Boot and Shoe Recorder comes this verse about whiskers, an entrance pass, and love on the World’s Columbian Exposition fairgrounds.

An 1893 patent fot a farm lifting gate.

TALE OF A CANCELED PASS

I.

Cervantes Burton was patentee
Of a lifting gate called the “A. B. C.”

“It is built in such a simple way
That a child can work it,” he would say.

Mr. Burton had shown this wondrous gate
At half the fairs in the Sucker State.

To open it all you had to do
Was to press a button and up it flew.

“As farmers and breeders are going there,
I’ll make an exhibit at the Fair.”

So Cervantes, and straightaway
He wrote for space and a place to stay.

They allotted him twenty feet or more
In K 68, M44.

In division 3 of the southeast lot,
A quiet and most secluded spot.

They sold him a badge of ornate brass
And gave him a photographic pass.

Cervantes received his pass on day,
And it was good from the 1st of May.

The photograph showed a hairy man,
With tousled whiskers a shade of tan.

With a hickory shirt and a slouchy hat,
A paper collar but no cravat.

Each day Cervantes showed his book,
And the man at the gate would take a look

At the hickory shirt and the whole array,
Then he’d let him in without delay.

II.

On the first illumination night
He fell in love with a beauty bright.

A peerless fay whose task, forsooth,
Was to sell the checks at a cider booth.

He saw her oft, and his love it grew
Through June, July and August, too.

At a critical moment she did confess
That she didn’t admire his style of dress,

And she also said she greatly feared
She never would marry a wealth of beard.

III.

Next day there came in the pass-gate row
A man whose suit was a dazzling show,

It was loudly checkered, had a wide lapel
And the Derby hat was horribly swell.

This man was shaven and chalky of hue,
He wore a scarf of delicate blue.

He stepped to the gate and the offered his book.
The gate-keeper opened and took one look.

He looked again, and he chuckled with glee,
“So you’re Cervantes Burton?” asked he.

“So you’re this man with the slouchy hat
And the bunch of whiskers and no cravat?

“Cancel number six naught four fifty-eight,
And chase this dude to the other gate.”

“Hold on,” said Cervantes, “that’s all right,
My name is Burton; I shaved last night.”

But a guard came up and drove him away
Until he was calm and willing to pay.

The girl cashier, she knew ’twas he,
So she said, “It’s him!” in ecstasy.

She gazed on his person with much delight
And whispered a “Yes,” that self same night.

So they are engaged in the regular way,
Though it costs him 50 cents a day.