“Old Capting Pink of the Peppermint,
Though kindly at heart and good,
Had a blunt, bluff way of a-gittin' 'is say
That we all of us understood.

When he brained a man with a pingle spike
Or plastered a seaman flat,
We should 'a' been blowed but we all of us knowed
That he didn't mean nothin' by that.

I was wonderful fond of old Capting Pink,
And Pink he was fond o' me,
As he frequently said when he battered me head
Or sousled me into the sea.”
—Wallace Irwin.