I’ve come to this great city
To find a brother dear,
And you wouldn’t dare insult me, sir,
If Jack were only here.
It was for songs like this that a masterpiece in another genre, the burlesque popular song, was created. I have heard A Working Girl Was Leaving Home credited to the brothers Smith (the boys the mother-in-law joke invented, according to George Jean Nathan, and for their sins they should have written this song) and to the late Tiny Maxwell, and to an unidentified English source. It’s title and chorus at least are immortal:
(Then to him these proud words this girl did say):
Stand back, villain; go your way!
Here I will no longer stay.
Although you were a marquis or an earl.
You may tempt the upper classes