“If any gent ’ud give me food, or put me on a job,
By day or night I’d work all right to earn an honest bob;
But if there ain’t, I tell you plain, it is my fixed intent
To hold a great mass meeting under Nelson’s monument.”
“Come home with me,” I kindly said, “come home with me and sup;
My landlady is Mrs. Brown—we must not keep her up.
There’s devilled kidneys at the fire—enough for you and me;
Come home, you great big hungry man; I lodge at Number three.”
(I used to lodge at Number two—the second in the row,
But Mrs. Jones is dead, and that was sixty years ago.)