Poor Thing

"Isn't that a room up there over the pie shop?"

"If times are so hard, why don't you rent it out?"

"That should bring in something"

"Up there? Oh, no, I don't go near it."

"People think it's haunted."

"You see, years ago, something happened up there, something not very nice"

There was a barber and his wife

And he was beautiful

A proper artist with a knife

But they transported him for life

And he was beautiful

"Barker, his name was. Benjamin Barker."

"Transported? What was his crime?"

"Foolishness..."

He had this wife, you see

Pretty little thing

Silly little nit

Had her chance for the moon on a string

Poor thing! Poor thing!

There were these two, you see, wanted her like mad

One of 'em a judge, t'other one his beadle

Every day they'd nudge and they'd wheedle

But she wouldn't budge from her needle

Too bad! Pure thing!

So they merely shipped the poor blighter off south, they did

Leaving her with nothing but grief and a year-old kid

Did she use her head even then? Oh no, God forbid

Poor fool!

Ah, but there was worse yet to come

Poor thing!

"Johanna... That was the child's name, pretty little Johanna."

"Go on."

"My, you do like a good story, don't you?"

Well, Beadle calls on her all polite

Poor thing! Poor thing!

The judge, he tells her, is all contrite

He blames himself for her dreadful plight

She must come straight to his house tonight

Poor thing! Poor thing!

Of course when she goes there, poor thing, poor thing!

They're having this ball all in masks

There's no one she knows there, poor dear, poor thing!

She wonders, tormented and drinks, poor thing!

The judge has repented, she thinks, poor thing!

"Oh, where is Judge Turpin?" she asks

He was there, alright, only not so contrite

She wasn't no match for such craft, you see

And everyone thought it so droll

They figured she had to be daft, you see

So all of them stood there and laughed, you see

Poor soul!

Poor thing!

"No!"

"Would no one have mercy on her?"

"So it is you, Benjamin Barker!"