And call’d me “Poor old Buffer!” what that means I cannot tell.
The sailor-man he said he’d seen that morning on the shore,
A son of something—’twas a name I’d never heard before,
A little “gallows-looking chap”—dear me, what could he mean?
With a “carpet swab” and “muckingtogs” and a hat turn’d up with green.
He spoke about his “precious eyes,” and said he’d seen him “sheer,”—
It’s very odd that sailor-men should talk so very queer—
And then he hitch’d his trousers up, as is, I’m told, their use,—
It’s very odd that sailor-men should wear those things so loose.
I did not understand him well, but think he meant to say