‘Bout friendship or fighting he can’t make a speech,

O’ the latter he’d much rather practise than preach.

A lapse of ten years or more soon roll’d away,

Since Afric’s brave bully proclaim’d it Tom’s day;

He then, like a game cock, retired with his pickings,

In peace to provide for his old hen and chickens;

When, lo! a cock crow’d on his walk in the west,

Supposing ‘Old Tom’ of Old Tom had the best;

But Tom left his ‘Hodges,’ gout, crutches, behind,

Reducing his belly, increasing his wind:—