Billeeʹ (Little)

The youngestʹ of “Three sailors of Bristol city,” who “took a boat and went to sea.”

“There was gorging Jack, and guzzling Jimmy,

And the youngest—he was little Billee.

Now, when they got as far as the equator,

They had nothing left but one split pea.

To gorging Jack says guzzling Jimmy,

‘Weʹve nothing left, we must eat we.ʹ”

Thackeray.

[They decide to eat Little Billee, but he contrives to escape.]

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.