Flashey Joe [Notes]
[By R. MORLEY in Universal Songster, ii. 194].
I
As Flashey Joe one day did pass
Through London streets, so jolly,
A crying fish, he spied a lass
’Twas Tothill’s pride, sweet Molly!
He wip’d his mug with bird’s-eye blue [1]
He cried,—“Come, buss your own dear Joe”; [2]
She turned aside, alas! ’tis true
And bawled out—“Here’s live mackerel, O!
Four a shilling, mackerel, O!
All alive, O!
New mackerel, O.”
II
Says I,—“Miss Moll, don’t tip this gam, [3]
You knows as how it will not do;
For you I milled flash Dustman Sam [4]
Who made your peepers black and blue. [5]
Vhy, then you swore you would be kind
But you have queer’d so much of late, [6]
And always changing like the wind,
So now I’ll brush and sell my skate.” [7]
Buy my skate, etc.
III
She blubb’d—“Now, Joe, vhy treat me ill?
You know I love you as my life!
When I forsook both Sam and Will,
And promised to become your wife,
You molled it up with Brick-dust Sall [8]
And went to live with her in quod! [9]
So I’ll pike off with my mack’ral [10]
And you may bolt with your salt cod.”
Here’s mack’rel, etc.
IV
I could not part with her, d’ye see
So I tells Moll to stop her snivel; [11]
“Your panting bubs and glist’ning eye [12]
Just make me love you like the divil.”
“Vhy, then,” says she, “come tip’s your dad, [13]
And let us take a drap of gin,
And may I choke with hard-roed shad
If I forsake my Joe Herring.”
Four a shilling, etc.
[1: mouth; silk handkerchief] [2: kiss] [3: talk like that] [4: fought] [5: eyes] [6: acted strangely] [7: be off] [8: took as a mistress] [9: gaol] [10: walk] [11: crying] [12: paps] [13: shake hands]