Your pardon, gents and ladies all -- Listen awhile to me and my blarney -- Straight from Dublin town I came: Faith! my name is Michael Carney. Trade was scarce and luck was bad; Humblings, grumblings, ne'er did cease, man, Till straight to town I came, egad, And soon was made a new policeman. * * * There isn't a yard nor a garden wall, About the town, but I can scale it; And if I find anything at all, Why, shouldn't I be a fool not to take it? Next day there is a hue and cry, Something's stolen, but to be brief, man, Oh, by the oky, who but I Go out to catch the thief, man? Suppose, in walking out at night, In every hole and corner creeping, Something I spy by the pale moonlight, Och! by my soul, there's a gentleman sleeping, His pockets I grope, his money I take, Then with my stick in his ribs I am jobbing him, And if perchance the fool should wake, I tell him I think a thief was robbing him. If there's no row in the whole street, Don't I myself know how to raise one? -- I knocks the first man down I meet And kicks up a shindy, fit to craze one; Then he resists, and I've a job -- Lock him up and swear he's riotly, Next day the scoundrel's fined ten bob, Because myself must not murder him quietly. I'm known to all the prigs in town -- To learned thieves well known my face is, The frail ones, too, my favours own, And charge me naught for sweet embraces, And if they're going a house to rob, Don't I watch (as is my duty)? But never splits about the job, For don't myself get half the booty? |