The trooper said to the sergeant’s wife:
‘Sure, I wouldn’t seem unpleasant;
But there’s women and childer about the place,
And—barrin’ a lady’s present—
‘There’s ould King Billy wid niver a stitch
For a month—may the drought cremate him!—
Bar the wan we put in his dhirty head,
Where his old Queen Mary bate him.
‘God give her strength!—and a peaceful reign—
Though she flies in a bit av a passion
If ony wan hints that her shtoyle an’ luks
Are a trifle behind the fashion.
‘There’s two of the boys by the stable now—
Be the powers! I’ll teach the varmints
To come wid nought but a shirt apiece,
And wid dirt for their nayther garmints.
‘Howld on, ye blaggards! How dare ye dare
To come widin sight av the houses?—
I’ll give ye a warnin’ all for wance
An’ a couple of ould pair of trousers.’
They took the pants as a child a toy,
The constable’s words beguiling
A smile of something beside their joy;
And they took their departure smiling.
And that very day, when the sun was low,
Two blackfellows came to the station;
They were filled with the courage of Queensland rum
And bursting with indignation.
The constable noticed, with growing ire,
They’d apparently dressed in a hurry;
And their language that day, I am sorry to say,
Mostly consisted of ‘plurry.’
The constable heard, and he wished himself back
In the land of the bogs and the ditches—
‘You plurry big tight-britches p’liceman, what for
You gibbit our missuses britches?’
And this was a case, I am bound to confess,
Where civilisation went under;
Had one of the gins been less modest in dress
He’d never have made such a blunder.