Benjamin Franklin King Jr.

Benjamin Franklin King, Jr. by Chas A. Gray

Benjamin Franklin King, Jr. (1857-1894) was an American humorist and poet whose work published under the names Ben King or the pseudonym Bow Hackley achieved notability in his lifetime and afterwards.

Sourced

• If I should die to-night
  And you should come in deepest grief and woe—
  And say:—"Here's that ten dollars that I owe,"
  I might arise in my large white cravat
  And say, "What's that?"
  • If I should die, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "If I should die to-night, / My friends would look upon my quiet face / Before they laid it in its resting-place, / And deem that death had left it almost fair", Belle E. Smith.

• Nothing to do but work,
  Nothing to eat but food,
  Nothing to wear but clothes
  To keep one from going nude.
  • The Pessimist, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).