While The Billy BoilsSearchThe world goes round, old fellow,And still I’m in the swim,While my wife’s second husbandIs growing old and grim.I meet him in the city—It all seems very tame—He glances at me sometimesAs if I were to blame.
Oh, my wife’s second husbandWas handsome, young and true;He had his boyish visions(I had my visions too).He made a model lover—The greenest in the game—They say, when I was marriedThat I was just the same.
Though I am ten years olderMy hair is dark to-day,While my wife’s second husbandIs quickly growing grey.I drank when first he knew me,And he drank not at all;I see that he, through drinking,Is going to the wall.
A sweet ill-treated woman,A drunken brute (Good Lord!)—Ah, well, she got her freedom,And he got his reward.He’ll fight it out a season,For Fate will not be forced,But my wife’s second husbandShall surely be divorced.
I sympathize, and wonderWhat mutual friends would thinkIf my wife’s second husbandAnd I should have a drink.And I a mere bystander—It almost seems absurd—Might lay propheticallyMy hand on my wife’s third.
But my wife’s second husbandHis sorrows shall forget,We’ll clasp warm hands in friendshipAnd clink our glasses yet.We’ll smoke cigars together,In pure philosophy,While calmly contemplatingThe fate of number three.