A man with a nickel,
A sword, and a sickle,
A pipe, and a paper of pins
Set out for the Niger
To capture a tiger—
And that’s how my story begins.
When he saw the wide ocean,
He soon took a notion
’T would be nicer to stay with his friends.
So he traded his hat
For a tortoise-shell cat—
And that’s how the chronicle ends.
