_Plumber Joe loquitur_:--
Oh, bust it! Or, rayther, bust _them!_ I've my eye on the pipes o' this
House,
As might give me the chanst as _I_ wants, but, by gob, it's a regular
chouse.
Nary bust in 'em yet, as I sees! I ain't none o' yer ornary hands,
There isn't a task in my trade but wot smart Plumber JOE understands,
And at making a jint I'm daisy. Our trade is a topper, it is,
But one arf of the pottrers called plumbers ain't nothink like up to
their biz--
Mere poor paltryfoggers, most on 'em, as boggle, and bungle, and botch.
'Tain't _bizness_ the beggars are arter, but more speshul Irish--or
Scotch!
A copper-bit jint is their utmost, but wot they like most is a splodge
Of canvas and white-lead or putty; _their_ work is all fakement and
dodge,
As won't last a fortnit, not watertight. As to a blow-jint, well did,
They jest couldn't take it on nohow--no, not if you tipped 'em a quid.
But I'm a certif'cated plumber, a master of shave-hook and solder,
Of turn-pin, and mallet, and fire-devil. Plumber who's smarter and bolder
With blow-pipe, and lamp-black, and size, you won't find London through
if yer try;
And at "wiping a jint"--ah!--a pickter--there's none as can wipe JOEY'S
eye.
Then at sanitry work! Bless yer buttons, yer dashed County Council ain't
in it;
And as to that there WALLACE BRUCE, wy, I'll jist wipe him up in a minit,
Though he _has_ a good fighting name on 'im. Calls me a quack, too, does
BILL,
And 'ints I dunno my own trade! Wait a bit, and I'll give _him_ a pill.
Insanitry aireys, indeed! As a judge of a rookery or slum
There ain't ne'er a Cockney C. C. as can sideup with JOEY the Brum;
Wot _'e_ doesn't know 'aint _wuth_ knowing. I'll set 'em all right,
though,--in time.
When England's _all_ Brummagemised, and I'm boss of it, _won't_ it be
prime?
Meanwhile, I'm a bit out-of-work. Unemployed, so to speak, like a lot,
Although I ain't no "Unskilled Labourer." HARDIE talks thunderin' rot,
But I thought 'e might make me a hopening. Somehow the fakement was lost.
And yet I _should_ be flush o' work, for we've had a unusual frost,
As this House, like the rest, must have felt. Wy, I thought they'd ha'
bust long ago,
Them Guverment pipes, and be blowed to 'em. 'Ere in the sludge and the
snow
I've bin waiting a tidy long spell, till my toes 'ave like icicles grown.
I've bin journeyman quite long enough, and I want to set up "on my own."
Pal ARTHUR is all very well, but at bossing a bit of a slob.
And when these big pipes do a bust, well--I see a rare charnce of a job!
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