Your Photo While You Wait [poem by Jack Moses]

[Editor: This is a poem from Beyond the City Gates: Australian Story & Verse (1923) by Jack Moses.]

Your Photo While You Wait

Ay! Mister, just a minute, please,
Your photo while you wait.
Keep the lady by your side
While I fix the plate.

Put your hat back from your eyes,
Give your face some light.
Smile a bit; don’t move an inch —
Got you! That’s all right.

Would you fancy them enamelled, Sir,
’Twould make a better job,
I’ll put them in a gilded frame
For just another bob.

There’s the picture finished, Sir,
No mistake, it’s great.
Half a caser, if you please —
Your photo while you wait.

Source:
Jack Moses, Beyond the City Gates: Australian Story & Verse, Sydney: Austral Publishing Co., 1923, pages 146

Editor’s notes:
bob = a shilling (equivalent to twelve pence); after the decimalisation of the Australian currency in 1966, the monetary equivalent of a shilling was ten cents; the phrase “a couple of bob” could specifically refer to two shillings (and, later on, to twenty cents), but it was generally a common reference to a small amount of money, as in “can you lend me a couple of bob?”

caser = a crown, five shillings