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.
V
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
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!