The “Charge o’ the Light Brigade,” Charlie?  Well, mugs will keep
          spouting it still;
  But wot is it to me and my mates, treadles loose, and a-chargin’
          down ’ill? 
  Dash, dust-clouds, wheel-whizz, whistles, squeakers, our ’owls,
          women’s shrieks, and men’s swears! 
  Oh, I tell yer it’s ’Ades let loose, or all Babel a busting
          down-stairs.

  Quiet slipping along in a line, like a blooming girl’s school on
          the trot,
  May suit the swell Club-men, my boy, but it isn’t my form by a
          lot. 
  Don’t I jest discumfuddle the donas, and bosh the old buffers as
          prowl
  Along green country roads at their ease, till they’re scared by my
          squeak, or my ’owl?

  My “alarm” is a caution I tell yer; it sounds like some shrill
          old macaw,
  Wot’s bin blowed up with dynamite sudden; it gives yer a twist in
          the jaw,
  And a pain in the ’ed when you ’ear it.  I laugh till I shake in my
          socks
  When I turn it on sharp on old gurls and they jump like a
          Jack-in-the-box.

  I give ’em Ta-ra-ra, I tell yer, and Boom-de-ray likewise, dear boy. 
  ’Ev’n bless ’im as started that song, with that chorus,—­a boon
          and a joy! 
  Wy, the way as the werry words worrit respectables jest makes me
          bust;
  When you chuck it ’em as you dash by, it riles wus than the row
          and the dust!

  We lap up a rare lot of lotion, old man, in our spins out of town;
  Pace, dust and chyike make yer chalky, and don’t we just ladle it
          down? 
  And when I’m full up, and astride, with my shoulder well over the
          wheel,
  And my knickerbocks pelting like pistons, I tell yer I make the
          thing squeal.

  My form is chin close on the ’andle, my ’at set well back on my ’ed,
  And my spine fairly ’umped to it, CHARLIE, and then carn’t I
          paint the town red? 
  They call me “The Camel” for that, and my stomach-capas’ty for
          “wet.” 
  Well, my motter is hease afore helegance.  As for the liquor,—­you
          bet!

  There’s a lot of old mivvies been writing long squeals to the
          Times about hus. 
  They call us “road-tyrants” and rowdies; but, lor! it’s all
          fidgets and fuss. 
  I’d jest like to scrumplicate some on ’em; ain’t got no heye for a
          lark.
  I know ’em; they squawk if we scrummage, and squirm if we makes
          a remark.

  If I spots pooty gurls when out cycling, I tips ’em the haffable
          nod;
  Wy not?  If a gent carn’t be civil without being scowled at, it’s
          hodd. 
  Ah! and some on ’em tumble, I tell yer, although they may look a
          mite shy;
  It is only the stuckuppy sort as consider it rude or fie-fie.