This phrase traces back to author Anthony Trollope and his book  The Kellys and the O'Kellys , published in 1848. The line, slightly different than the phrase as we know it now, read this way:  “If it was to save my life and theirs, I can’t get up small talk for the rector and his curate.” It means that if my very life depended on completing a task or something then I would most likely die.