Who’d have thought that my redemption would have cost so many lakhs
(For they saddle their expenses on my fellow-subjects’ backs).
What with deficits to square,
And Commissions everywhere,
On the “hoarded wealth of India” I shall prove a heavy tax.
If I’d only cultivated, now, a taste for beer or gin,
Or had learnt at Pool or Baccarat my neighbour’s coin to win,
I could roam abroad o’ nights,
And indulge in these delights,
And my soul would not be stigmatized as being steeped in sin!