Skip to content
Shawords

Quote#Children

When I was a lad I served a term

Quote byW. S. Gilbert · 1836–1911

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), 1878, HMS Pinafore, act 2, also quoted in Dictionary of Quotations, p. 353-354 (2005).

English (original)

When I was a lad I served a term As office boy to an attorney's firm. I cleaned the wndows and I swept the floor, And I polished up the handle of the big front door. I polished up that handle so carefullee That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!

— W. S. Gilbert

More from W. S. Gilbert