The Ingoldsby Legends :: :: University of Virginia Library

The horrid old ruffian comes, cat-like, creeping;
He opens the door just sufficient to peep in,
And sees, as he fancies, the Bagman sleeping!
For Blogg, when he'd once ascertain'd that there was some
“Precious mischief” on foot, had resolved to “play 'Possum:”—
Down he went, legs and head,
Flat on the bed,
Apparently sleeping as sound as the dead;
While, though none who look'd at him would think such a thing,
Every nerve in his frame was braced up for a spring.
Then, just as the villain
Crept, stealthily still, in,
And you'd not have insured his guest's life for a shilling,
As the knife gleam'd on high, bright and sharp as a razor,
Blogg, starting upright, “tipped” the fellow “a facer:”
Down went man and weapon.—Of all sorts of blows,
From what Mr. Jackson reports, I suppose
There are few that surpass a flush hit on the nose.

Now, had I the pen of old Ossian or Homer,
(Though each of these names some pronounce a misnomer,
And say the first person
Was called James M`Pherson,

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While, as to the second, they stoutly declare
He was no one knows who, and born no one knows where,)
Or had I the quill of Pierce Egan, a writer
Acknowledged the best theoretical fighter
For the last twenty years,
By the lively young Peers,
Who, doffing their coronets, collars, and ermines, treat
Boxers to “Max,” at the One Tun in Jermyn Street;—
—I say, could I borrow these Gentlemen's Muses,
More skill'd than my meek one in “fibbings” and bruises,
I'd describe now to you
As “prime a Set-to,”
And “regular turn-up,” as ever you knew;
Not inferior in “bottom” to aught you have read of
Since Cribb, years ago, half knock'd Molyneux' head off.
But my dainty Urania says, “Such things are shocking!”
Lace mittens She loves,
Detesting “The Gloves;”
And turning, with air most disdainfully mocking,
From Melpomene's buskin, adopts the silk stocking.
So, as far as I can see,
I must leave you to “fancy”
The thumps, and the bumps, and the ups and the downs,
And the taps, and the slaps, and the raps on the crowns,
That pass'd 'twixt the Husband, Wife, Bagman, and Dog,
As Blogg roll'd over them, and they roll'd over Blogg;
While what's called “The Claret”
Flew over the garret:
Merely stating the fact,
As each other they whack'd,
The Dog his old master most gallantly back'd;
Making both the garcons, who came running in, sheer off,
With “Hippolyte's” thumb, and “Alphonse's” left ear off;

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Next, making a stoop on
The buffeting group on
The floor, rent in tatters the old woman's jupon;
Then the old man turn'd up, and a fresh bite of Sancho's
Tore out the whole seat of his striped Callimancoes.
Really, which way
This desperate fray
Might have ended at last, I'm not able to say,
The dog keeping thus the assassins at bay:
But a few fresh arrivals decided the day;
For bounce went the door,
In came half a score
Of the passengers, sailors, and one or two more
Who had aided the party in gaining the shore!

It's a great many years ago—mine then were few—
Since I spent a short time in the old Courageux;—
I think that they say
She had been, in her day,
A First-rate, but was then what they term a Rasée,—
And they took me on board in the Downs, where she lay.
(Captain Wilkinson held the command, by the way.)
In her I pick'd up, on that single occasion,
The little I know that concerns Navigation,
And obtained, inter alia, some vague information
Of a practice which often, in cases of robbing,
Was adopted on shipboard — I think 'twas called “Cobbing.”
How 'twas managed exactly I really can't say,
But I think that a Boot-jack was brought into play—
That is, if I'm right: — it exceeds my ability
To tell how 't is done;
But the system is one
Of which Sancho's exploit would increase the facility.

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And, from all I could learn, I'd much rather be robb'd
Of the little I have in my purse, than be “cobb'd;”—
That's mere matter of taste:
But the Frenchman was placed—
I mean the old scoundrel whose actions we've traced—
In such a position, that on this unmasking,
His consent was the last thing the men thought of asking.
The old woman, too,
Was obliged to go through,
With her boys, the rough discipline used by the crew,
Who, before they let one of the set see the back of them,
“Cobb'd” the whole party,—ay, “every man Jack of them.”