I.

You see everybody in our town was running around, getting fat jobs
and positions, and picking up a million dollars or so,
So I felt it incumbent on me
To shake myself up, and see if there wasn’t a good butter firkin, well
filled, loafing around idle, in which could conveniently locate my
centre of gravity, and so I said to myself, I’ll go
To Washington and see,
Says ICHABOD BOGGS, says I.

II.

Now, don’t you see, you might just as well ask for a big position at
first, and then take what you can get,
At least that has been my rule so far,
For, as I says to myself, if you can only get a very high position, with
a sort of nabob’s salary, and lots of perquisites running in
annually, you needn’t do anything, you bet,
But puff at your cigar,
Says ICHABOD BOGGS, says I.

III.

So I put on my best clothes, and a sort of a big blue necktie,
and shortly thereafter showed myself to Mr. GRANT,
And said that there had been quite enough
Of this giving away big offices to people who hadn’t big reputations,
and that he had other fish to fry, and that, as he wouldn’t give the
Custom House to my son, I’d take it myself, and then I stopped,
and he looked, “I shan’t,”
But all he said was—­puff,
Says General GRANT, says he.

IV.

Then all the smoke got in my nose, and I sneezed and snorted a bit,
and then I just simply remarked and said
That he needn’t go and get into a huff,
And if he didn’t like to give me that office, couldn’t he make me
Minister to England, as I was a big feeder, or if that didn’t suit,
why, if he’d do it, I wouldn’t object to being Minister to Cuba,
when the Cubans had been all killed, and were thoroughly dead? 
But all be said was—­puff,
Says General GRANT, says he.

V.

Well, then I got kind of discouraged, but I thought that I’d better try
again, and not get up so far,
But ask for what he’d give beyond doubt,
So I asked for a position as night watchman at the Navy Yard, and
thought I’d get it, and he’d answer my request, for I’d noticed that
his Havana was gradually growing smaller, and he did answer me,
just as he’d thrown away the end of his cigar,
He simply said, “Get out!”
Says General GRANT, says he.

VI.

So I got out, as fast as a pair of legs, with a number twelve boot
kicking at the place where they’re joined, would permit,
And wandered off, just about as far
As I conveniently could, and then I sat down on a milestone and raised
my voice to Heaven, and cried aloud, that, weather permitting,
General GRANT should never, never, NEVER, go back to the White
House, not if I could help it,
To puff on his cigar,
Said ICHABOD BOGGS, said I.