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 tide. And likewise Ned to his masthead he runs a rag of the Queen's, With a rusty sword and a moke on board to bray like the Horse