Click here for an interesting note from Mark Twain's Own Autobiography.

Twain's daughter Susy claimed that he wrote these words:

There is a boarding house, far, far away
Where they serve ham and eggs, three times a day
Oh, don't those boarders yell
When they hear the dinner bell
They give that landlord rats
Three times a day.

Twain says:

Again, Susy has made a small error. It was not I that wrote the song. I heard Billy Rice sing it in the negro minstrel show, and I brought it home and sang it - with great spirit - for the elevation of the household. The children admired it to the limit, and made me sing it with burdensome frequency. To their minds, it was superior to the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Mark Twain's Notebooks & Journals also has an interesting comment.

(Note that there is just a slight difference from the words Dick Greenhaus posted.)