I am a hail-fellow-well-met Victorian gent of some renown,
who lost his top hat but was cheered 
when it was located at the lost and found

The topper was handed in by Marvellous Madge,
a contortionist with Freddy Folodop’s Travelling Circus,
led by the impresario Michael O’Flaherty,
who thought up such a mouthful after being
administered a heavy dose of bicarbonate of soda
to combat an embarrassing attack of flatus.

This O’Flaherty boasted of Madge’s undying love,
every night in the snug at the Admiral Lord Nelson.
But unknown to him the said supple lady
was entranced by another,
from that very same travelling troupe,
called Billy Bob, The Vibrating Skeleton.

Being a man of influence, I booked the
secret lovers to appear at the British Bulldogs dinner.
Alas, if only I’d known the heartache
my generous act would cause.

They wowed the genteel audience
with a joint show of shuddering bones,
invoking rapturous applause.

Just as I was about to offer a heartfelt congratulation,
the doors flew open to admit a brass band
from the Methodist Chapel,
intent on acquiring a flock of new souls.

Madge was filled with awe at their brass neck
and shining belief in the Almighty,
which to her seemed to be saying:

‘Come with us and follow the path to salvation,
and escape from your servitude under
that devious sod O’Flaherty.’

Throughout this concert of holy angels,
a distinguished cove with a Tennessee accent
and wideawake hat had been boasting of his vast fortune,
in between regaling everyone with tales of wild West adventure.

She soon discovered this boastful gent
was an agent for Perky Pontague’s Peculiar Performers,
and allowed herself to be plied with
pints of Bassets Beautiful Ale,
awaking to find she was booked in a
touring show called Weird and Wacky Wonders.

This extraordinary production boasted pantomime elephants,
dancing dervishes and a singing swan.
Billy Bob was heartbroken at losing his sweetheart,
and set off in pursuit, busking his unique act,
occasionally being paid in kind,
notably in the fair city of Dublin,
where he found refuge in Ma Murphy’s House Of Ill Repute.

Here he learned that Madge, after stealing a
leading lady’s Portmanteau, had been kicked
out of Pontague’s wacky troupe,
and had been performing with a clown
called Laughing Pat MacBunnion,
whose bestselling act was to produce
cards out of his huge behind,
all done with the aid of a midget
hiding in his voluminous three-piece suit.

At first laughing Pat was hostile to Billy’s enquiries,
until he remembered the note given to him
by Gervase O’Rafferty, whom he had begged
to help him locate his lost love.

‘Have a pint of stout,’ he exclaimed,
‘and I’ll tell you how that rascal Gervase
and I smuggled poteen under the
noses of the Royal Irish Constabulary,
then you can persuade your lady friend
to stop trying to sell me barrels of Basset’s Beautiful Ale.

‘She’s a lovely lady but on that subject
is fast becoming a bore.
‘I tried said beverage when I played
in O’Bunnion’s Bouncing Banjos
on a rare trip to Albion’s shore,
and it really is, to use a phrase
which originated in this fair city, beyond the pale.

‘If I was you I’d forget her,
for she longs for a life you can’t provide,
but rather desires Lord Gervase Golighty,
to promenade by her side, and later’,
he said with a wink, ‘demonstrating her
contortionist skills beneath his freshly-scented sheets’.

But Billy clung to his romantic illusions,
until one night, leaving O’Monaghan’s Music Hall,
where he had deputised for Gob’s Gillican,
the Shimmering Shadow,
he met the full force of one Rufus Roughshod,
a 20-stone bruiser from Woolwich Arsenal,
ex-sergeant to former Colonel Golightly,
who left him with the warning ‘Forget that woman,
or your bones will vibrate no more.’

‘What’s it to you?’ Cried Billy Bob,
‘You’re of humble stock, and your master’s
part of the ruling class.’

‘You’re right lad,’ he replied.
‘But I owe him, for he saved me from
certain death in the Indian Mutiny,
when we sacked a temple at Madras,
and I nearly paid the ultimate price,
for trying to pinch a prince’s
jewel-encrusted chamber pot.’

Billie’s cries alerted a passing gypsy caravan,
whose ancient mother pumped him full of herbal infusions.
Taken by the Romany tribe on their road south,
he set up his own magical show,
in a cave deep in the Kerry mountains known
as The MacGillycuddy Reeks.

His remarkable talents left the children in hysterics,
but rumours emerged about a ghostly woman,
whose heart-rending sobs were often heard
as Billy counted his daily fortune.

A scientist from the British institute for
Atmospherical Spooks and Spirits - ASS for short,
said it was the cave’s geophysical atmospherics,
which permeated Billy Bob’s Magical Emporium.

But rumours persisted that it was one
Margaret Williams, stage name Marvellous Madge,
who in an effort to escape her bankrupt husband,
was lost overboard on the Dublin packet boat
still keening for her lost love, Billy Bob,
The Vibrating Skeleton.