My grandfather used to sing this song. He's gone now, and my mother has no memory of where, exactly, it came from. I'm hoping this rings a bell for someone. I've searched for it fairly extensively, and have come up with nothing...

And please forgive the pathetic attempt to spell the word that is supposed to sound like "fuh-lye." If I sat here long enough to come up with a spelling I was satisfied with, I'd never get this posted.

This is how I remember it:

^^
CHARLES AUGUSTUS

Oh, I'll tell you now a tale
Of a gay young cavalier who
Not many years ago,
Lived in this town right here
His name was Charles Augustus
And divinely he could sing
And he was a clerk at a dry goods store
And he wore a diamond ring.

(chorus)
Whack!
Tilly fa-lie fa-lay
Fa-lie fa-lay fa-lay whack!
Tilly fa-lie fa-lay, and he wore a diamond ring.


Well, he had a grand mustache
His hair hung down in curls, oh!
What a fellow to smash
Said unsuspecting girls.
Sly glances he would fling
As he passed them on the street
What a handsome ladies man
With his elegant diamond ring

(chorus)

To parties he would go
And with the girls he'd flirt oh!
What a handsome catch (?)
the girls would all assert
He had plenty of cash on hand
And all that sort of thing
And he wore a two-forty coat
And he flashed his diamond ring

(chorus)

At last suspicion came
To his employer's mind, oh
Charles Augustus' clothes
Were all together too fine
So watch was set on him
To stop that sort of thing
And they caught that handsome clerk
Doing "this" with his diamond ring

(chorus)

Well they had him up in court
Before a judge he was tried, oh
Since the case was plain
His guilt was not denied
So they sent him for his health
To the village of sing-sing
To play checkers with his nose
Without any diamond ring

(chorus)



Any bells? Anyone? Help!! And

–– Andrus

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