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18

BELL-BOTTOM TROUSERS

I was a maiden who lived in Drury Lane
My master he was kind to me,
My mistress was the same.
And then I met a sailor, as merry as could be
And he is the cause of all my misery.

[[underlined]] Chorus [[/underlined]]

Singing of bell-bottom trousers and coats of Navy blue, 
He'll climb the rigging like his daddy used to do.

He asked me for a kerchief to tie around his head, 
He asked me for a candle to light his way to bed,
And I being a simple maid and thinking it no harm,
I climbed into the sailor's bed to keep the sailor warm.

Chorus

Then early in the morning before the break of day
He handed me a five-pound note and this to me did say:
"Now you may have a daughter, you may have a son
And this is to pay for all the damage I have done."

Chorus

"Now if it's a girl, gently bounce her on your knee,
And if it's a boy, send the bastard out to sea."

Chorus

Now the moral of my story is as plain as it can be,
Never trust a sailorman an inch above your knee.

Chorus

I have found that after about forty years, my memory sometimes plays tricks on me. I doubt that Dorothy Baptiste supplied me with the above words. On the following page, I'm going to include a portion of the original for the record. By the time we headed home from Chicago, I'd had considerable opportunity to size up Dorothy simply by watching her in action and I became more and more impressed that she was an unusual girl. She had enormous enthusiasm, simply bubbling with it. It was obvious that she was well rounded. She could switch at will

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