"'I'll be eat if you dines of me,' says Tom
'Yes, that,' says I, 'you'll be.'
'I'm boiled if I die, my friend,' quoth I;
And 'Exactly so,' quoth he.
"Says he, 'Dear James, to murder me
Were a foolish thing to do,
For don't you see that you can't cook me,
While I can—and will—cook you?'
"So he boils the water, and takes the salt,
And the pepper in portions true
(Which he never forgot), and some chopped shalot
And some sage and parsley, too.
"'Come here,' says he, with a proper pride,
Which his smiling features tell,
''Twill soothing be if I let you see
How extremely nice you'll smell.'
"And he stirred it round and round and round,
And he sniffed at the foaming froth—
When I ups with his heels, and smothers his squeals
In the scum of the boiling broth.
"And I eat that cook in a week or less,
And—as I eating be
The last of his chops, why, I almost drops,
For a wessel in sight I see.
"And I never grieve, and I never smile,
And I never larf nor play,
But I sit and croak, and a single joke
I have—which is to say:
"Oh, I am a cook, and a captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig!"