All you who live at your wit's end,
Unto this maxim pray attend,
Never despair to find a friend,
While flats have bit aboard!
For Nell and I now keep a gig,
And look so grand, so flash and big,
We roll in every knowing rig [14]
While we sing fal de ral tit, etc.
[1: Notes] [2: walked] [3: victims] [4: stole handkerchiefs; side pocket] [5: girl, whore] [6: talking noisily] [7: Notes] [8: wig] [9: steal] [10: shilling] [11: prison] [12: eat and drink] [13: made a rich haul] [14: are up to every move]
A LEARY MOT [Notes] [c. 1811]
[A broadside ballad].
I
Rum old Mog was a leary flash mot,
and she was round and fat, [1]
With twangs in her shoes, a wheelbarrow too,
and an oilskin round her hat;
A blue bird's-eye o'er dairies fine—
as she mizzled through Temple Bar, [2]
Of vich side of the way, I cannot say,
but she boned it from a Tar— [3]
Singing, tol-lol-lol-lido.
II
Now Moll's flash com-pan-ion was a Chick-lane gill,
and he garter'd below his knee, [4]
He had twice been pull'd, and nearly lagg'd, [5]
but got off by going to sea;
With his pipe and quid, and chaunting voice,
"Potatoes!" he would cry;
For he valued neither cove nor swell,
for he had wedge snug in his cly [6]
Singing, tol-lol-lol-lido.
III
One night they went to a Cock-and-Hen Club, [7] at the sign of the Mare and Stallion, But such a sight was never seen as Mog and her flash com-pan-ion; Her covey was an am'rous blade, and he buss'd young Bet on the sly, [8] When Mog up with her daddle, bang-up to the mark, [9] and she black'd the Bunter's eye. [10] Singing, tol-lol-lol-lido.