The shares went down, O my! Was not a fool to buy; If I had been a savage on the Nile, I needn't pen this sonnet, with a sigh!
YOU can't exist on nothing, when launched in wedded life-- So a lucky battered sixpence, was all I gave my wife, And said to her one morning, "When another vessel starts I'll scoot, and make my fortune, in romantic foreign parts."
And so I went and scooted, but how the thing was done, Was not like any pic-nic, or passage made for fun. We had hardly left the Channel, and were in the offing yet, When the steward heard me snoring in the quiet lazarette.
It wasn't quite successful--the voyage--after this, And when we got out foreign, I didn't land in bliss. I worked my passage over, but the captain wasn't kind, And all I got for wages, was a compliment behind!
And thus I was a failure, my later life was worse, When twenty years were over, at last I found a purse. It made me sad, and homesick, and tired of foreign life, "I'll start," says I, "for Europe, and try and find my wife."
I sought her when I landed, but everything was changed, And high and low I wandered, and far and near I ranged; I put her full description in several ads.--at last My flag of hope that fluttered, came half-way down the mast.
I went, and I enlisted all in the bluecoat ranks; And took to promenading along the Liffey banks. I made a measured survey of curbstones in the squares, And prowled behind the corners, for pouncing unawares.
Twelve months of measured pacing, had gone since I began; I hadn't run a prisoner, the time was all I ran; And when the year had vanished, said the sergeant, "Halt, O'Brine! You haven't run a prisoner, you'll have to draw the line."
That night I went and drew it--'twas peeping through a blind!-- I got some information, of suspicious work behind. The act I had my eye on, was a woman with some lead, I watched her squeeze a sixpence, in wad of toughened bread.
A chance of some distinction was here, I could not shirk, I peeled my worsted mittens, and bravely went to work. I double somersaulted the window--'twas a do I picked up in Australia, from a foreign kangaroo.
I lighted on the table, not quite upon my feet, But, ah! her guilty terror was evidence complete. "Wot's this," said I, impounding the lead, and bread, and tin; "I've caught you in the act, ma'am, I'll have to run you in."