OU 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."

They put her on her trial, and the evidence began,

I swore my information, like a polis and a man;

I showed a silver sixpence, with a hole in it defined,

And showed them how I telescoped my presence thro' the blind.

The jury found her guilty, the judge condemned her then,

To go into retirement, where she couldn't coin again.

A lucky one he gave me, he stayed away too long.

I wanted for to change it, and thought it wasn't wrong

To take its little photograph, for the sake of bein' his wife."

Said the Judge, "It doesn't matter, I've sentenced you for life!"

I saw her disappearing, from my eye behind the dock,

O, ham an fowl! it's awful, to think upon the shock.

I staggered with my baton to the sergeant, and I swore,

He had made me run too many, I'd seek a foreign shore.