As bring her fresh fish when the others deceas’d, which they did a dozen times over!
Then a whole new loaf was short! for I know, of course, when our bread goes faster,—
And I made a stir with the bill in my hand, and the man was sent off by his master;
But, oh dear, I thought I should sink thro’ the earth, with the weight of my own reproaches,
For my own pretty son had made away with the loaf, to make pastry to feed the roaches!
I vow I’ve suffered a martyrdom—with all sorts of frights and terrors surrounded!
For I never saw him go out of the doors but I thought he’d come home to me drownded.
And, sure enough, I set out one fine Monday to visit my married daughter,
And there he was standing at Sadler’s Wells, a-performing with real water.
It’s well he was off on the further side, for I’d have brain’d him else with my patten,