Frankie and Albert

Frankie was a good girl
As everybody knows.
She paid a hundred dollar bill
For a suit of Albert's clothes,
Just because she loved him [so].

Frankie went down to the bar-room;
She called for a bottle of beer;
She whispered to the bartender:
Has Albert he been here?
He is my man and he won't come home. "

" I am not a-going to tell you no story;
I am not a-going to tell you no lie;
He left here about an hour ago
With a girl called Alice Fry;
He is your man and he won't come home. "

Frankie went to the house
As hard as she could run;
And under her apron
Concealed a smokeless gun;
" He is my man but he won't come home. "

Frankie went to the pool-room,
And knocked on the pool-room door,
And there she saw the man she loved
Standing in the middle of the floor;
" You are my man and you will come home. "

Albert ran around the table
And fell down on his knees.
He hollowed out to Frankie:
" Don't kill me, if you please;
I'm your man and I have done you wrong. "

Frankie stepped out in the back yard;
She heard a bull-dog bark;
" That must be the man I love slipping out in the dark.
If it is, I am a-going to lay him low;
He is my man, but he done me wrong. "

Frankie went down to the river.
She looked from bank to bank:
" Do all you can for a gambling man,
But yet you will get no thanks;
For a gambling man won't treat you right. "

Frankie reached down in her pocket,
And pulled that forty-four out,
And shot little Albert through that suit of clothes
People been a-talking about;
" He's my man but he won't be long. "

" Turn me over, Frankie,
Turn me over slow,
Turn me on my right side;
My heart will overflow;
I'm your man and I have done you wrong. "

Frankie looked down on Broadway
As far as she could see —
Two little children just a-crying and singing
" Nearer, My God, to Thee " —
Seems so sad little Albert is dead.

They took little Frankie to the courthouse;
They sat her in a big arm chair;
She was listening for the judge to say:
" We will give her ninety-nine year —
She killed her man in the first degree. "

But the judge, he said to the jury:
" Jury, I [can] see
[Why] she shot the man she loved —
I think she ought to go free:
For a gambling man won't treat you right. "

Frankie walked out on the scaffold
As brave as she could be:
" When I shot the man I loved,
I murdered in the first degree;
He is my man and I loved him so. "

Now little Albert is buried
And Frankie is by his side —
Had it cut on the head and foot tomb-stones,
" The gambler and his bride, "
The gambling man and his bride.
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