TOO KIND BY HALF.
["The independence and integrity of Siam ... is a subject of great importance to the British, and more especially to the British Indian Empire."—Lord Rosebery. "We have in no way any intention of threatening the independence of Siam."—M. Develle.]
British Tar sings, someway after Mr. Rudyard Kipling's "Tommy."
Air—"Mandalay."
"By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a settin'," an' she takes 'er time from me.
But this Siam puss looks pooty, and I'm sorter bound to say
"You stand back, you sailor Frenchy! that's a game as two can play!"
'Twas my game at Mandalay,
And you seem on the same lay:
You can twig my Jack a-flaunting from the Nile to Mandalay;
But this I've got to say,
If your 'and on 'er you lay,
I shall ask you to take a 'and in a game as men can play!
'Er petticoat is yaller, and 'er little cap is green,
And—I shouldn't half object to interjuce 'er to my Queen!
I don't want to see 'er suckin' of a Paris cigarette,
And a-wastin' purchased kisses on French Bullyvards—you bet!
No, I wouldn't shed no blood,
But by Mekon's yaller mud,
I 'ave always felt it "bizness" to take care no rival stud
On my road to "far Cathay."
Wot? She's fired upon your gunboats? Well, I'd like to know, yer see,
If them gunboats wos cavortin' where they didn't ought to be.
Your clutch upon 'er wrist, eh? Well, that's like your bloomin' cheek!
She shrinks from you, my Frenchy. No, yer know if she should squeak—
Give a reglar woman's squeak,
Though she looks carved out o' teak—
I should think o' my own womankind, my friend, and I should—speak
In the British sailor's way!
You'll "respect 'er Independence and Integrity," you say?
Well, a man who on a woman 'is 'and would dare to lay—
Hay? Save in the way o' kyindness! Why, you've capped me there, I own,
Which I didn't think that sentiment to Frenchies was beknown.
It's a bit o' good old Vic.!
But you've nicked it quick and slick.
Well, I 'ope you'll square it fairly, and not lay it on too thick,
In the brave old Bismarck way!
The idea o' wasting ivory, silk, and peacocks' tails, and such,
Upon merchants who're a trifle too much like George Canning's "Dutch."[*]
When a fair and square Free Trader, like—well, not unlike myself,
Could stand by for to purtect 'er, and 'elp 'er—and 'im—pile pelf,
Well—I can quite understand
She may find your 'eavy 'and
Too kyind by half, my Frenchy, and prefer the British land,
And the British Tar's old way.
Yes; our Rosebery and your Develle do agree—in words, no doubt,
But, yer see, the Ten Commandments, in Bangkok, git turned about!
"Independence and Integrity" for pooty dear Miss Siam,
Is wot you're "interested in" my Frenchy,—and so I am!
Only—in the game we play,
Cards do turn up in a way
That would stagger sly Ah Sin himself. If you git in my way
On my road to "Old Cathay,"
Or my aid this gyurl should pray,
I might p'raps come down like thunder,—as I did in Mandalay!
[*] "In matters of commerce, the fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little and asking too much."
Canning's "A Political Despatch."
The Battle of the Sexes.—Middlesex v. Sussex.