He’d seen that little vulgar Boy, that morning swim away
In Captain Large’s Royal George, about an hour before,
And they were now, as he supposed, “somewheres” about the Nore.
A landsman said, “I twig the chap—he’s been upon the Mill—
And ’cause he gammons so the flats, ve calls him Veeping Bill!”
He said, “he’d done me wery brown,” and nicely “stow’d the swag,”—
That’s French, I fancy, for a hat—or else a carpet-bag.
I went and told the constable my property to track:
He ask’d me if “I didn’t wish that I might get it back?”
I answer’d “To be sure I do!—it’s what I’m come about.”