A short grumble of a rhyme about a man who makes off with someone's bread and cheese. Four lines, one joke, over before it outstays its welcome.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
A little old man of Derby,
How do you think he served me?
He took away my bread and cheese,
And that is how he served me.
About this rhyme
Text matches exactly, four lines, no reason given for taking the bread and cheese.
Four lines, one small injustice: an old man takes away someone's bread and cheese and that's the entire story, no explanation offered or needed. It reads like a nursery complaint set to rhyme, the kind of flat unfairness children recognise instantly. Keep it deadpan; the lack of reason is the joke.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition