ck of the _Union Jack_;
And some are screwed on the foreign port,
And some on the starboard tack;--
Ever they tell the tale anew
Of the chase for the kipperling swag;
How the smack _Tommy This_ and the smack _Tommy That_
They broached each other like a whiskey-vat,
And the _Fuzzy-Wuz_ took the bag.

Now this is the law of the herring fleet that harries the northern
main,
Tattooed in scars on the chests of the tars with a brand like the
brand of Cain:
That none may woo the sea-born shrew save such as pay their way
With a kipperling netted at noon of night and cured ere the crack of
day.

It was the woman Sal o' the Dune, and the men were three to one,
Bill the Skipper and Ned the Nipper and Sam that was Son of a Gun;
Bill was a Skipper and Ned was a Nipper and Sam was the Son of a
Gun,
And the woman was Sal o' the Dune, as I said, and the men were three
to one.

There was never a light in the sky that night of the soft midsummer
gales,
But the great man-bloaters snorted low, and the young 'uns sang like
whales;
And out laughed Sal (like a dog-toothed wheel was the laugh that Sal
laughed she):
"Now who's for a bride on the shady side of up'ards of forty-three?"

And Neddy he swore by butt and bend, and Billy by bend and bitt,
And nautical names that no man frames but your amateur nautical
wit;
And Sam said, "Shiver my topping-lifts and scuttle my foc's'le
yarn,
And may I be curst, if I'm not in first with a kipperling slued
astarn!"

Now the smack _Tommy This_ and the smack _Tommy That_ and the
_Fuzzy-Wuz_ smack, all three,
Their captains bold, they were Bill and Ned and Sam respectivelee.

And it's writ in the rules that the primary schools of kippers
should get off cheap
For a two mile reach off Foulness beach when the July tide's at
neap;
And the lawless lubbers that lust for loot and filch the yearling
stock
They get smart raps from the coastguard chaps with their blunderbuss
fixed half-cock.

Now Bill the Skipper and Ned the Nipper could tell green cheese from
blue,
And Bill knew a trick and Ned knew a trick, but Sam knew a trick
worth two.

So Bill he sneaks a corporal's breeks and a belt of pipeclayed
hide,
And splices them on to the jibsail-boom like a troopship on the