When all at once around there came Over the sea a greenish flame, And the biggest whale I ever spied, Rose up by Eric Jansen’s side: For it is true, as you may’ve inferred, There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. And the Finn he got upon the whale, And off in the flame we saw them sail; Hearing a song as they fell behind, Like women singing with the wind: For it is true, as all have concurred, There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. Off from the ship and off the shore, And Eric Jansen we saw no more; But from that hour, aboard that ship, All went well for the rest of the trip: For it is true, upon my word, As you and I have often heard, People may say it’s all absurd, And yet it holds as I averred, And bein’ a fact it’s on recórd, Unless the best of men have erred, As you may truly have inferred, In which observers have concurred: There’s no good luck with a Finn on board. “That story of the Finn,” said one to Brown, “Is of the kind which hev been salted down, Which is the reason, I suppose, why you Take such a lot of pains to prove it’s true. When tales are c’rect in all their fitnesses, There ain’t no need of forty witnesses, Nor one at all I guess, but that’s enough; Now listen to the song of ‘Charley Buff,’ Who always said, ‘I am a truthful man:’” He polished off his drink and thus began: CHARLEY BUFF Oh Charley Buff was his parents’ joy, And as he always told, He went to sea as a cabin-boy Before he was one year old. _Chorus._ Now this is pretty bad, But it’s nothin’ to what’s a-coming: Yet Charley he was a truthful lad, And never indulged in humming. And this Charley Buff allays said to me: “To lie I cannot afford, For you know I hev got more truth in me Than all of the rest on board. “I have seen in the isle of Barriboo Such high-sized coco-nuts, That the natives used to split ’em in two And use ’em to make their huts. “I hev seen the Kanaka women Foller a ship’n full sail, A thousand miles a-swimmin’ For a bottle or a tenpenny nail. “I hev seen the eggs of the toodly-wang; It’s a bird in the Muldive Isles; And when they hatch they burst with a bang You can hear five hundred miles. “From a Cariboo king named Jocko, A man of cheerful life, For only a fid of tobacco I bought me a beautiful wife. “One night she was gone, by gum! But as soon as ever I missed her, From the king for a glass of rum I bought her younger sister.