Oh! grunting peck in its eating [9] Is a richly soft and savoury thing; A Norfolk capon is jolly grub [10] When you wash it down with strength of bub: [11] But dearer to me Sue's kisses far, Than grunting peck or other grub are, And I never funks the lambskin men, [12] When I sits with her in the boozing ken.
Her duds are bob--she's a kinchin crack, [13] And I hopes as how she'll never back; For she never lushes dog's-soup or lap, [14] But she loves my cousin the bluffer's tap. [15] She's wide-awake, and her prating cheat, [16 ] For humming a cove was never beat; [17] But because she lately nimm'd some tin, [18] They have sent her to lodge at the King's Head Inn. [19]
[1: public house] [2: pipe; smoke] [3: paid a shilling ] [4: gin] [5: humbug] [6: porter] [7: sherry] [8: mistress] [9: pork] [10: red-herring] [11: lots of beer] [12: judges] [13: clothes; neat; fine young woman] [14: drinks water or tea] [15: inn-keeper] [16: tongue] [17: fooling a man] [18: stole; money] [19: Newgate; Notes]
THE HOUSE BREAKER'S SONG [Notes] [c. 1838]
[By G. W. M. REYNOLDS in _Pickwick Abroad_].
I ne'er was a nose, for the reg'lars came [1] Whenever a pannie was done:-- [2] Oh! who would chirp to dishonour his name, And betrays his pals in a nibsome game [3] To the traps?--Not I for one! [4] Let nobs in the fur trade hold their jaw, [5] And let the jug be free:-- [6] Let Davy's dust and a well-faked claw [7] For fancy coves be the only law, [8] And a double-tongued squib to keep in awe [9] The chaps that flout at me!
From morn till night we'll booze a ken, [10] And we'll pass the bingo round; [11] At dusk we'll make our lucky, and then, [12] With our nags so fresh, and our merry men, We'll scour the lonely ground. And if the swell resist our "Stand!" We'll squib without a joke; [13] For I'm snigger'd if we will be trepanned [14] By the blarneying jaw of a knowing hand, And thus be lagged to a foreign land, Or die by an artichoke. [15]
But should the traps be on the sly, For a change we'll have a crack; [16] The richest cribs shall our wants supply-- [17] Or we'll knap a fogle with fingers fly, [18] When the swell one turns his back. [19] The flimsies we can smash as well, [20] Or a ticker deftly prig:-- [21] But if ever a pal in limbo fell, [22] He'd sooner be scragg'd at once than tell; [23] Though the hum-box patterer talked of hell, [24] And the beak wore his nattiest wig. [25]