Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
Of all the docks upon the blue
There was no dockyard, old or new,
To touch the dock at Cockatoo.
Of all the ministerial clan
There was no nicer, worthier man
Than Admiral O'Sullivan.
Of course, we mean E. W.
O'Sullivan, the hero who
Controlled the dock at Cockatoo.
To workmen he explained his views --
"You need not toil unless you choose,
Your only work is drawing screws."
And sometimes to their great surprise
When votes of censure filled the skies
He used to give them all a rise.
"What odds about a pound or two?"
Exclaimed the great E. W.
O'Sullivan at Cockatoo.
The dockyard superintendent, he
Was not at all what he should be --
He sneered at all this sympathy.
So when he gave a man the sack
O'Sullivan got on his track
And straightway went and fetched him back.
And with a sympathetic tear
He'd say, "How dare you interfere,
You most misguided engineer?
"Your sordid manners please amend --
No man can possibly offend
Who has a Member for a friend.
"With euchre, or a friendly rub,
And whisky, from the nearest 'pub',
We'll make the dockyard like a club.
"Heave ho, my hearties, play away,
We'll do no weary work today.
What odds -- the public has to pay!
"And if the public should complain
I'll go to Broken Hill by train
To watch McCarthy making rain."
And there, with nothing else to do
No doubt the great E. W.
Will straightway raise McCarthy's screw.
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Written by
Bret Harte |
Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.
Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.
It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.
Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With a smile that was childlike and bland.
20Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye’s sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.
But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see,—
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me!
Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, “Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,”—
And he went for that heathen Chinee.
In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game “he did not understand.”
In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs,—
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
21And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers,—that’s wax.
Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,—
Which the same I am free to maintain.
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