If I only was a nigger, and
Got 25 per cent.
[No, ladies and gentlemen, many and many a time my mother has said: “’Arry, my angel-hearted boy, don’t let nothing never persuade you to be a Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, or a digger, or an England’s Only General, or a writer of novelettes in the “Independent,” or a Duke or a Marquis, or an Admiral of the Blue, or a Grand Old Man, or a President of the United States of America. Don’t you ruin yourself by being a Mayor or a Banker, or throw away your chances by marrying a Baroness Burdett-Coutts—or purchasing a 900 carat diamond found by an unknown Dutch farmer on an unknown Dutch farm when there is no secrecy about the matter from beginning to end.” “No, my beaming boy,” said the old lady, bless her heart! “You be a Christy Minstrel, and go work in the claims for your wages and 25 per cent.” I took the old lady’s advice, and—all together, if you please, gentlemen]
“I would not be an Hemperor,
I would not be a King,
I would not be a Hadmiral
Or hany sich a thing;
I wouldn’t be in Lowe’s Police
And live inside a tent;