Scrub, scrub, scrub, at the reeking tub, for eighteen hours at a
stretch, perchance,
Till our bowed backs ache, and our knuckles smart, and the lights through
the steam like spectres dance;
Ankle-deep in the watery sludge, where the tile is loose or the drainage
blocked!
Oh, I haven't a doubt that the dainty dames--if they only knew!--would be
sorely shocked.

Typhoid! Terribly menacing word, the whisper of which would destroy our
trade;
But dirt, and damp, and defective drainage will raise that ghost on a
world afraid;
And at thirty years our strength is sapped by insidious siege of the
stifling fume,
Or what if we linger a little longer? Scant rays of comfort such life
illume.

Grievances, BET? Well, I make no doubt that the world of idlers is
sorely sick
Of the moans and groans of the likes of us. When the whip, the needle,
the spade, the pick,
Are all on strike for a higher wage, 'tis a worry, of course, to the
well-to-do,
And a sleek Home-Sec, must "decline to pledge" support official to me
and you.

Of course, of course! Who are we, my dear, to bother the big-wigs and
stir their bile?