Mind Your P's and Q's
Dublin Core
Title
Mind Your P's and Q's
Subject
Drinking
Creator
E.B.S.
Source
http://addison.vt.edu/record=b1775388~S1
Publisher
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Date
May 1876
Contributor
Jennifer Schrauth, Britt Hoskins
Rights
Permission to publish images from The Gray Jacket must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech
Format
Text
Language
English
Type
Poem
Identifier
LD5655.V8 L4, ser.1, v.1, no.7 (May 1876), p.1
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
In ale-houses, in the olden-time, when chalk "scores" were marked upon the wall, or behind the door of the tap-room, it was customery to put the initial "P" and "Q" at the head of every man's account, to show the number of "pints" and "quarts" for which he was in arrears; and we may presume many a friendly rustic to have tapped his neighbor on the shoulder when he was indulging too freely in his potations, and to have exclaimed:
Mind your P's and Q's matt,
Mind your P's and Q's ;
Your Landlord will no longer wait,
Nor indolence excuse.
Your bill is running up 'you see,
Three pints, two quarts in debt ;
Pay up, pay up, or else you can
No more at present get.
It would be better far to learn
Temptation to refuse;
Earn well your money e'r'e you spend,
And mind your P's and Q's.
"Pay as you go " 'tis better far,
And have no bill at all ;
No "pints" and " quarts " to bother you,
Written upon the wall.
But 'twould be better still if you
Your Meals elsewhere would find,
And then 'twould be so nice to have
No P's and Q's to mind.
All this is good advice my friend,
Which you'll do well to use;
So mind your P's and Q's man,
Mind your P's and Q's.
Mind your P's and Q's matt,
Mind your P's and Q's ;
Your Landlord will no longer wait,
Nor indolence excuse.
Your bill is running up 'you see,
Three pints, two quarts in debt ;
Pay up, pay up, or else you can
No more at present get.
It would be better far to learn
Temptation to refuse;
Earn well your money e'r'e you spend,
And mind your P's and Q's.
"Pay as you go " 'tis better far,
And have no bill at all ;
No "pints" and " quarts " to bother you,
Written upon the wall.
But 'twould be better still if you
Your Meals elsewhere would find,
And then 'twould be so nice to have
No P's and Q's to mind.
All this is good advice my friend,
Which you'll do well to use;
So mind your P's and Q's man,
Mind your P's and Q's.