“Listen, old feller-me-lad,” he said,
With a rugger-player’s laugh
(Not that he was big and brawny,
Only about scrum-half)
“You can muck about till you’re blinking dead
Without a career or a wife,
But (I know that it sounds damn corny)
You’re wasting your bloody life!
Look, Slater Walker would snap you up!
Anyone can see you’re no fool.
Or why not go round to the Honkers and Shankers?
You’ve been to a decent school.
But before you do, go and have a haircut —
You can’t go through life as a clown.
Get a good job! You’ll only thank us
For helping you settle down.
Work with a bank, and go overseas,
That’s where you’ll get the best pay.
Look at us: Jill and I are content,
With our two kids, and one on the way.
We’ve enough for a car, and boarding-school fees,
And her clothes, and my drinking and smoking;
And the bank pays us our large flat’s rent,
And we’ve got our own place in Woking.
So we’ve got our means, and we’ve got our ends,
And we’re happy through and through;
But you, you do nothing, although you’re clever,
And we worry a bit about you.
Now look, we like you, we’re speaking as friends:
Settle down! Get a job and a wife!
You can’t go on mucking about for ever —
You’re wasting your bloody life!”