Fanny and Jenny by W. S. Gilbert

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Fanny and Jenny

Fun n.s. V - 7th Sept. 1867

Fanny and Jenny in Paris did dwell,
Miss Jane was a dowdy, Miss Fanny a swell —
Each went for to dine at a quarter to four —
At her own little favourite Restauratore —
Fanny of Bertram and Roberts was fond,
While Jenny she worshipped her Spiers and Pond.

Fanny was pretty and piquante and pert,
Her manners were shortish and so was her skirt,
While Jenny the elder would make a man wince,
In a dress of the mode of a century since.
Bertram and Roberts’s Fanny was blonde,
And dark was the Jenny of Spiers and Pond.

Illustration by Gilbert

Jane lived in a modest and lady-like way:
To Spiers and Pond she went every day,
She’d order up beef and potatoes as well,
And cut off the joint until senseless she fell:
(She fed herself daily all reason beyond
To gaze all the longer at Spiers and Pond.)

But Fanny, that frolicsome, frivolous maid
(Whose tastes were more airy than Jenny’s the staid),
To Bertram and Roberts would hie her away,
And swallow plum-pudding the rest of the day.
The best of her dresses Miss Fanny she donned
(As Jenny did also for Spiers and Pond).

The Restaurateurs didn't seem for to care
For Jenny's soft ogle or Fanny's fond stare.
Said Jenny, "Don't let us be taken aback,
We're probably on an erroneous tack,
.And Bertram and Roberts of me may be fond,
While you are beloved by Spiers and Pond!"

“Oh, Bertram and R., are you dying for me,
Or am I the chosen of Spiers and P.?
Oh, which is the angel and fostering star
Of Spiers and P., or of Bertram and R.?
Which firm have I collared in Venus's bond?
Say, Bertram and Roberts — speak, Spiers and Pond!

"Perhaps if you cannot completely agree
Which of you shall have Fanny and which shall have me,
And you wish for to go for to do what is right,
You will go to the Bois de Boulogne for to fight —
It's the mode that is popular in the beau monde,—
Will Bertram and Roberts fight Spiers and Pond?"

But Spiers and Pond are but perishing clay,
So they gasped and they gurgled and fainted away —
The burden of Bertram and Roberts’s song
Was “Goodness! how shocking! Oh, please go along!
With neither for worlds would we ever abscond!“
And “Ditto for us,” exclaimed Spiers and Pond.

Said Fanny, “How bold, and how dreadfully rude!”
“Those men are too forward,” said Jenny the prude,
“Such youth and such beauty as both of us own
Are safe in the walls of a convent alone,
We shall there be the coarse persecutions beyond
Of Bertram and Roberts and Spiers and Pond.”

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