The Young Stagers

Front matter

THE YOUNG STAGERS

BY PERCIVAL CHRISTOPHER WREN

BEING FURTHER FAITES AND GESTES OF THE JUNIOR CURLTON CLUB OF KARABAD, INDIA, WHEREOF SOME WERE HERETOFORE SET FORTH IN THE BOOK YCLEPT DEW AND MILDEW

The Saxon and the Gael and Things

I. THE SAXON AND THE GAEL AND THINGS.

The Chief in silence strode before and reached the torrent's sounding shore. The torrent was provided by the bath-room water-tap, and did very well. Too well, Ayah thought, when she returned from her meal and siesta. The Chief strode in silence and little else, as his tartan plaid was a piece of tartan ribbon and his kilt a brief petticoat—brief even for this little girl of eight. Fitz-James in silence strode behind, and then spoilt everything by breaking the silence and becoming a brass band. Association of ideas, no doubt, for when he marched behind the President he was usually a band, procession, Greek Chorus, or a general choral atmosphere.

"Shut up, Fizz-James, you 'normous ass," hissed the Chief, casting a fiery eye over her bare shoulder. "You've only got to strode, like me, till we get to Koil-and-Poggle Ford, and thou must keep thee with thy sword—until I let you do me in."

Fitz-James ceased to play an imaginary bugle and to beat a figmentary drum. He sighed at his unworthiness.

Having circumambulated the bath-room and parts adjacent, the Chief halted, well within the radius of the splashes from the torrent, shook his sword menacingly, raised his shield, scowled horribly, and suddenly thrusting his ferocious face into that of the fascinated Fitz-James, cried,

"And, Stranger, I am Brodrick Two!"

Fitz-James over-acted, being but young. He rendered "surprise and slight consternation," by collapsing upon the ground, fetching a deep groan, and murmuring "Help!"

The President remembered that the years of the Vice were not six, and was lenient.

"Pull yourself together, Fizz-James, and play the man this day," continued Roderic Dhu. "Get out of the wet, and buck up, for I have sworn this braid to stain in the best blug that warms thy vein—(where did I put that beastly braid?) D'you hear, Fizz-James? And I shall jolly well cut any vein I like."

"You be careful, Robberic," said Fitz-James, rising and attempting to draw his sword.

"Not at all," was the reply, "and this rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as I. See?"

The rock was the inverted bath, resting upon its handles. The Vice, essaying to lean upon it while he wrestled with his recalcitrant sword, found that it was not based with such firmness as to warrant its use as a simile.

Roderic Dhu looked to earth, and sky, and plain, as things he ne'er might see again.

"Would you mind helping me out with this thword, Robberic?" politely asked Fitz-James. "If I pull, this button will come right off, and my drawers will come down." As he was arrayed only in two tight garments this seemed undesirable, particularly in a Stranger.

"I will James Fizz," replied Roderic, "but some people wouldn't. Not for the person by whom they were just going to be done in—and with that very sword… There you are… If you are ready, it's got to ill-fare it then with Brodrick Two when on the ground his Taj he threw, whose studs of brass and tough bull-hide had death so often dashed aside. They are bone studs of Daddy's because he hadn't any studs of brass, and didn't seem to want to lend any gold ones. And the bull's hide is card-board—but it's a Taj all-right."

"I thought the Taj was a hotel," observed Fitz- James. "I wemember we went …"

"You're too fond of thinking, James Fizz," interrupted Roderic. "What about Blue Murder—no, Red Murdoch—I mean?"

Fitz-James's eye gleamed. He had his cue. "He's staff and stick," he said.

"He's what, you ass?" queried Roderic coldly.

"He's stark and stiff," the other corrected, and, striking the attitude shown him by the President at rehearsal, and confirmed by the picture, he declaimed:—

The wriggle is already dead And I wemember what you said— Er—and beneath the whiff There lies Red Murdoch stark and stiff."

"Oh, really?" sneered Roderic, "and who stark-and-stiffed him, pray?"

"I did," replied Fitz-James. "I did him in proper." (Subaltern language, this.)

"H'm," commented Roderic. "That's awkward—because the side wins that gets first blood…"

"Was there any blood?" he added, as an idea struck him, and he saw a loop-hole of escape from the operation of the baleful prophecy.

"Lots," was the depressing answer. "I stained a whole roll of braid in the best of it. All my clo'ves too—and his. Norful mess!"

"Well, anyhow, it's beneath the cliff, he lies, not 'whiff'. I daresay there is a whiff, by now—but that's not what you meant."

The bitterness of death was not past for Roderic, and he spoke bitterly.

As he prepared to fight his last fight and meet his end at the hand of the hated Southron, he protruded his tongue and made a shocking grimace.

"Yah! Fizz-Jimmy, you beastly Sack-Son," quoth he, "Come on! Beware! Thy hand must keep thy head and all the rest of thee for, as I said before, this is Koil-and-Poggle Ford, and Sack-Son, I am a perfect Gale! Lay on—and no prodding in the stummick…"

Ill fared it then with Roderic Dhu, as d(h)uly laid down in the poem and shown forth in the picture.

It was a truly Homeric combat, and when Brodrick Two got a nasty crack across the knuckles, he only put his sword in his other hand the while he sucked them. But his eye flashed fire.

"I'll be Fizz-James next time," he panted, as he received, but recked not of, a wound. Apparently Fitz-James concluded that the best thing to do, in view of this threatened change of rôle, was to make hay while the sun shone, for, as, with a heart-rending groan, Roderic sank to earth and closed his eyes, he dealt him a superfluous and uncalled for coup de grâce. Worse, it partook of the nature of a prohibited "prod in the stummick". Too immersed in the enthralling business of artistic death-throes to protest, Roderic but rolled over on to the illegally as- saulted part, and with his head upon his folded arms, continued to render up his spirit with the calm dignity of a Chieftain of Clan Alpine.

Here it was that the Vice displayed that lack of complete sense of the fitness of things, perfect histrionic taste, and absolute reliability which occasionally caused sorrow and chagrin to the President.

Raising his blood-stained weapon aloft in both hands, he flourished it above the prostrate body of the Chieftain, and, then (alas, that this faithful though eaves-dropping chronicler must painfully set it forth), brought it down with a resounding thwack upon the proud Gael's exiguous kilt—even as he murmured, all unsuspecting such baseness:—

"Oh, Golly! I am slain at last!"

But the while he stiffened and grew cold in rigor mortis, he opened one eye, glared at the swaggering victor, and hissed, with deadly meaning, "Yes, I'll be Fizz-James next time!"

Ancient Britons and Modern

II. ANCIENT BRITONS AND MODERN.

In India, during the monsoon, and at other times, damp clothes are dried by laying them over a vast inverted basket beneath which smoulders a brazier of charcoal.

Ayah was airing clean clothes upon such a basket as the children passed through the big empty landing behind the Club premises—(the Nursery, to wit).

Ayah removed the warm, dry clothes and departed to bestow them in their respective cupboards.

As the eye of the President fell upon the dully glowing charcoal, visible through the large interstices and apertures of the crude basket-work, an idea germinated in her fertile brain.

"I say, Fic," quoth she to the faithful Vice, "how'd you like to play Judgment Day? Or would you rather have the Invasion of Britain, or the Forty Thieves?"

The Invasion he knew, and the Thieves he knew, but what was Judgment Day?

"Will you be a Miserable Sinner, an Ancient Briton, or a Forty Thief?" continued the President.

"What d'you have to do, if you've a Mitherable Thinner?" inquired the Vice.

"Oh, be tried on Judgment Day," was the reply. "If found guilty, you'd go to Hell. That would make a fine Hell for Miserable Sinners," and she pointed to the fire-enclosing basket.

"What would you be, if I was a Mitherable Thinner?" queried the junior official.

"God," was the prompt reply. "I should sit on a Throne and judge you. … I might have to send you to Hell."

"What would I do there?" asked the Vice doubtfully.

"Burn," replied the President sepulchrally.

The Vice preferred to bear a hand in the Invasion of Britain, or in resisting the same.

"I wonder what we could have for ," pondered the President, on finding that her colleague had rooted objections to sustaining the rôle of a Miserable Sinner on Judgment Day.

"Woad is what the Ancient Britons went about in," she said. "Buster told me all about the Invasion of Britain when I showed him the picture. He said they went about in the woady buff and didn't care a blow. Not if it rained. … No police and no Grundies, he said,"

"But what is woad?" asked he of the tenacious and inquiring mind.

"Paint. Blue paint. Something like the blue devils and dragons on Buster's arm. Like tattooing."

The Vice's spirit soared, and he produced an idea, simple as all great notions are.

"Paint me blue with the 'pwussian blue' in your box of water colourths," he said, and capered with glee at the very bare idea.

His leader congratulated him upon his quiet brilliance, bade him disrobe to the irreducible minimum the while she disinterred her paint-box and procured a cup of water.

The Vice was quickly rendered woady, and so were his tight, brief, nether garments, as the paint trickled. He was then stood in the sun and breeze of the verandah to dry.

"Try and dry a nice blue," adjured the President, "while I tie the lid of the soap-dish on to a stick for a stone-axe. You'll have to be jolly careful how you chop me with it when I'm the Censurian of the Tenth Legion."

"Might I cut a bit off you?"

"You might break the lid of the soap-dish, silly."

Having provided the Woady One with a stone-axe and a bone-headed spear which had once been a bone-handled umbrella, the President proceeded to set him up in life with even greater opulence. Visions of nothing less than a scythe-axled chariot were floating in her enterprising and inventive mind.

"You know those things in the picture, like milk-carts with grass-scythes on the wheels, don't you?" said she. "They were called chariots, and you stood up in them, and drove them about, cutting people's legs off as you went by. It must have been lovely. … I b'lieve I could make one. Only if you fall out you mustn't fall on the scythe—or you'll get into trouble. … Your old go-cart and a couple of carving-knives would do."

They toyed with the idea until the Vice became ecstatic, and the President knew the double joy of creation and applause.

It was easier than had been expected, to secure two knives, poke them through the wheels and fasten them with string to the axle. The protruding blades were most realistic, almost too much so when the Vice scratched a woady leg on the point of one, and the President cut her finger. However, there cannot be an Invasion of Britain without the effusion of blood. You couldn't expect it. Besides a good layer of thickish cloggy woad soon stops the bleeding.

The rocking-horse, Amir, having been harnessed to the chariot and a bear-skin rug thrown over it, no one with the imagination of a flea and the soul of a frog could have failed to perceive in it the very last word in scythe-wheeled chariots. Surely the most ancient of the honour- able order of Ancient Britons would have described it as a vastly modish war-curricle, in fact the Ancient British War Office sealed-pattern war-car.

Indeed it so appealed to its delighted inventor that she hung in doubt as to whether she should side with the Ancient ones and be Boadicea of the Iceni, or undo them in the part of the Centurion of the Tenth Legion, until she decided to play both rôles, seriatim.

"Look here, Hog-and-Magog, which is your Ancient British name, only I shall call you Hog for short, I am going to be Queen Bawdy Seer of the Eye-seen-eye first, and this is my chariot, and Amir has got to reckon himself three horses at once, as is usual in war-chariots. I …"

"I thought it was my chariot," interrupted the disappointed Vice.

"You're always thinking," rebuked his senior colleague. "You better thtoppit if we are to get on with things. Your chariot! And I suppose you'd like the Queen of the Eye-seen-eye to walk while you tool along in a chariot! Well art thou named Hog, O Ancient Briton. And aren't you about dry now?"

"Yes. Are you going to be an Ansiatic Briton? Can I paint you? I'm a norful good artith, Buthter thaid tho!" said the Vice hopefully.

"No, Ancient British ladies didn't paint," was the chilling answer. "Besides I am going to be a Queen—not a woady buffer. My name's Bawdy Seer, and you can call me Baw or Bawdy, for short, if you can't remember it all."

"Thanks," returned the Vice, conscious of terrible deficiencies in this direction. He did his best to remember and understand, but realised that his stupidity, ignorance, and inferior histrionic powers often took the gilt off the ginger-bread, when they did not actually take the ginger-bread from under the gilt.

"Now, then, Hog," continued the Queen, "can you surge? If so, crowd round my chariot into a fearful, howling, surging mob, and I will make a stirring speech. … Mind you are stirred a lot," she added sotto voce.

"Friends, Britons, Countrybreds, lend me your ears," were the opening words of the stirring speech.

The fearful, howling mob had heard them before, but howled with no less enthusiasm. It was a part in which the Vice was at home and which he supported well. He loved being an army, procession, crowd, retainers, jury or alarums-and-excursions-without. In a collective part he was free from self-consciousness and mauvaise honte. But2

"Stop that filthy row," were the following words as the incensed monarch found her voice all but drowned by the superabundant howling of the mob. "Be a fearful howling mob without so much noise while I am talking. Some of you mobs have no more sense than rabbits. I'm always telling you about it. Pukka poggles! Howl every time I stop for breath—not all the time.

Cowed by the Queen's flashing eye and biting words, the mob fell silent—feeling that life was hard even while awaiting so much as a catch in the breath of the Queen, that it might dutifully let its most mobby howl.

"Friends, Britons, Countrybreds," continued Boadicea, "lend me your ears and" (with a nod to the Vice) "your mouths."

Loud and prolonged howls from the surging mob.

"These snifty Romans are about to invade our private country, and we must arise in our might and—er—puck them in the neck."

Loud and prolonged howls from the surging mob.

"I have got it in for them because they scourged me too—you know, gave me an awful hiding. I was licked by the Lictor—lammed like anything."

Loud cheers from the mob.

"That's nothing to cheer about you 'normous Asses. … Anyhow, they are about to invade us somewhere about Bournemouth beach, and it is up to all good Ancient Britons to arise in their might and biff them on the napper. … (Cheer, you Fat-heads !) …! shall lead you in battle and drive this chariot myself. You will see many Romans cut in halves and, if you watch carefully, perhaps Julius Cæsar perhaps he has got more sense than to get in my way. My faithful armour-bearer, Hog, will have a free ride by my side and pot any Roman seen interfering with the horse—I mean the three horses—as they gallop along. He is Company Marksman2"

Wild yelps from the mob.

—"at very short range."

Soft murmurs from mob.

"Thank you, my friends, thank you," concluded the Queen. "The collection will be in aid of the families of me and the Hog."

The next thing was to discover some reasonably satisfactory Romans.

"I don't thuppothe Widdy and Venus would mind taking part," suggested the Vice.

Widdy was a big white Persian cat, and Venus a bigger white bull-dog.

"No," agreed the Vice, "they wouldn't mind obliging. Rout them out."

Widdy, as usual, was asleep in her basket on the back verandah and Venus was in his kennel. They expressed no objection to sustaining the rôles of Romans. Augmented by a bronze Buddha, a large doll, and a set of big skittles, they made a satisfactory army, and, all being arranged, the Vice climbed carefully into the chariot, and the battle began.

It was evident from the speed at which Amir rocked that they were dashing along at a terrible pace.

Knowing that something was expected of them, Widdy and Venus remained in statu quo ante, but while Widdy sat up and took an intelligent interest, Venus lay down, grinned fatuously, and wumped the floor with his tail in an idiotic manner.

"That's Julius Cæsar—and he's not trying," cried Boadicea pointing at him.

The hint was sufficient, and the armour-bearer raised his mighty bow, drew it to his shoulder—and caught Venus fairly in the stomach. With a yelp of disgust the stricken Cæsar scrambled to his feet and returned to his kennel. Anybody who wanted him to play Romans some more, could come and fetch him. His demoralisation spread, and Widdy followed him, pursued by a grey-goose shaft.

"I think the wily foe have had enough," said Boadicea, several of the skittles having fallen. The bronze Buddha, unperturbed, was captured and bound to the chariot-wheels of the conqueror—and that was that. …

"Now I'm going to be the Standard-bearer of the Tenth Legion," stated the President, "also the Censurian. And the battle may end differently this time. Go and get that brown iron paper-knife from the drawing-room because its copper, and this is the Bronze Age."

The Vice obeyed.

"Make a jolly good Roman short sword," observed the President, examining it in this new light. "You'll have to be nippy with your shield, though—it's got rather an edge."

"I'll watch it," replied the Vice—using another of the unfortunate expressions learnt from Buster and his undesirable subaltern friends.

"What is your name?" he inquired. "I can't call you 'Thtandard-blarer of the Tenth Legium' the whole time, nor yet 'Cen-chew-rium'."

"Call me Reginald or Reggie, then," permitted the Vice. "No—Samuel would be nicer, I think, 'Samuel the Standard-bearer' or 'Samuel the Censurian' sounds all-right."

"Right O, Thammy," acquiesced the Vice, and prepared to do battle.

"No—you get in the chariot," directed the President, "and I come ashore in a boat. Then I hop out and make a speech to my soldiers who hang back a bit. They're not for it, at first, you know, and …"

"Can I take a pot at you while you speech?" interrupted the Vice.

The President considered this.

"It is battle, you know," urged the Vice, "and I didn't ask you to come invading on my sands when I might want to be fishing or paddling or playing with my children or anything."

"Yes—but I've got to win, you know. It is History, and we can't alter that. … Tell you what—you can hit me in the shield while I am making the speech—or knock my helmet off. Yes—make it all the more real. …"

An empty drawer provided the Roman galley, and in the prow thereof proudly stood Samuel the Standard-bearer. In his hand he bore the S.P.Q. R. standard of the Tenth. It looked like a curtain-pole and a pinafore—but no matter. Nor matter that his helmet was frankly the paraffin-oil funnel with an ostrich feather stuck down its up-turned nozzle, his shield of card-board, his sword a paper-knife, his cuirass a tea-tray, and his greaves a pair of Daddy's leggings. The play is the thing—and Imagination is life and salvation.

Bravely he leapt into the waves, and turned to his daunted followers as an arrow smote his shield.

"Buck up, you fellows," quoth he, "a little wetting won't hurt you—nor spoil your bronze clothes. Come on, you're not salt nor yet sugar. A bath will do some of you good. …"

Still they hung back.

"Behold!" he continued, "I take the Standard of the Tenth Legion among the enemy!"

He did, and another arrow took him well in the centre of the cuirass ere the enemy, leaping from the chariot, rushed upon him with spear and axe. Dropping the axe, the enemy seized the standard with a cry of—

"Leggo, Thamuel!—or die!"

Samuel did neither. He rapped the knuckles of the presumptuous hand sharply, and the enemy drew back with a yelp of anguish.

"Hop it!" cried the Centurion, pressing his advantage and prodding the retreating foe with the butt-end of the standard. "Bung off! Barbarium," and the barbarian fled.

Leaping into the deserted chariot the Centurion said "Home" to a supposititious driver and poked out his tongue at the defeated enemy—and that was that.

Tosh and Funny-Dog

III. TOSH AND FUNNY-DOG.

The difference between Tosh and Funny-Dog is the difference between the humour of Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, or The Hunting of the Snark and the humour of a half-penny "comic" paper.

Tosh was dear to the souls of the members of the Junior Curlton, while for Funny-Dog they had a quiet contempt. If you talked proper Tosh you could stay for hours, but if you only talked Funny-Dog they did not mind how soon you went.

Buster was great at Tosh, but of course could not always live at the high level of real proper and genuine Tosh, and sometimes descended perilously near to mere and common Funny-Dog.

It was felt that he had done so, for instance, when at a Literary session of the Club he produced as his contribution:—

There was once a funny old tolf Who spent all his tune playing golf, He drove on to the linx With a naughty young minx, Saw his better ½/T and drove olf.

It was received in dead silence.

"There are points about toff, golf, and off," he suggested diffidently. "And about drove on and drove off. You know how you 'drive off' at golf, don't you?"

"We do," said Boodle. "We did it with some pin-fire cartridges."

"And then this—'better ½/T,' is quite a new-way of saying he saw his wife—his better-half—over her tea, or, if you like, bending over her tee on the green, you know. …"

"If you say it's very funny, Buster, no doubt it is," was the reply. … "Prob'ly most 'scruciating."

"Oh, no! I don't say that," the unhappy youth replied, "but well—it is Tosh, I think."

"Well, we won't say it's Funny-Dog, anyhow," conceded Boodle, and the matter dropped.

Daddy laughed consumedly at Buster's discomfiture. (He was held to have the right Tosh touch, and Boodle declared that he never lapsed into Funny-Dog, but she may have been partial and biassed in her judgment, for she loved Daddy "mos' tremenjous". Was he not so wise and clever and understanding that he was fit to take part in their games and able to enter into their imaginings and occasions, lawful and unlawful? So great and able a mind had he that he knew the utter unimportance of Grown-up things—like time, money, dignity, and silence, or being late for dinner-parties, must-go-to-office-now, mind-my-hair-and-clothes, not-quite-so-much-noise, and musn't-play-with-that. He was that sensible you would have thought he was a child, but for his size and his grey hair. In fact he was nearly as valuable, brilliant, and child-like as Mummy herself.)

When the Club held its Literary meetings, Daddy was expected to provide either Tosh or a Stirring Tale (plenty of good sound robbers, wolves, Red Indians, and things), but Mummy was always looked to for something that made you feel good, and funny all over, and desirous of seeing and doing beautiful things as well as hearing the beautiful thing she was reading or telling or reciting.

What they loved best was some of Mummy's own poetry. Even if they could not understand a word of it, it was so satisfying to the ear, so musical and beautiful — besides being Mummy's very own. That was perhaps the chief element of the pleasure of listening to the sweet and sonorous sounds, the pleasing and satisfying rhythm. There was also the element of pride in the fact that not all children have a Mummy who can read them her own poetry. …

"Don't try poetry, Buster dear," continued Boodle. "You can't do it like Mummy. Make up a nice Toshy tale if you are going to talk Tosh. … I think the best Tosh I know is

'Three Wise Men of Gotham Went to sea in a bowl. If the bowl had been stronger My story had been longer. …'

I love that. It tells you they were Asses without saying so, and it tells you they were drowned without saying so. … like jokes that don't have all the joke in the words."

"You put your finger on the point, President Sahib," remarked Daddy from the Club armchair, "and sum up a whole treatise on humour-by-implication. … Most learned President! A Daniel come to judgment."

"Don't be a Funny-Dog, Daddy," besought the flattered President.

"We nearly played 'Judgment' the other morning," put in the Vice, who was less bored by Literary meetings than might have been expected. There were always the Fairy Tales, and Daddy's lurid stories, and the better sorts of Tosh, not to mention the joy of hearing Mummy recite or read, or, best of all, say her own poetry.

"This is the story," quoth Buster, "of two other Wise Men of Gotham famous as not having gone to sea in a bowl. They were, in their student days, the Wisest Men In the University of Dantzig, and were very fond of doing so."

"Doing what?" inquired Boodle.

"Dantzig," replied Buster. "I have a cold in by dose. They spent most of their time, even in extreme old age. In Dantzig."

"But they were Wise Men of Gotham," said Boodle.

"Yes, and always dwelt there. They simply loved Dantzig in Gotham."

"Is Dantzig in Gotham?" asked Mummy.

"They were, Dear Lady, most of the day and all the night."

Mummy smiled.

"What were they, Buthter?" inquired the puzzled Vice.

"Dantzig," was the reply. "Dantzig all over the place. Dantzig in Gotham, you know. They Dantzed with each other, mostly."

"That's better Tosh," put in the President kindly. "What was the end of them?"

"Well—one lepped so much in Dantzig that he became a leper. A confirmed professing leper, and it was no good arguing with him."

"And the other Withe Man?" put in the Vice.

"Oh, he bounded in Dantzig, frightfully," was the answer. "Became a perfect bounder. People didn't like it. They were expelled from the Senior Curlton Club of Dantzig, who won't keep lepers and bounders. Not anyhow. Then the two Wise Men took up the cause of Pro- gress. They progressed by leaps and bounds of course. …"

"What became of them in the very end," pursued the Vice, tenacious ever, as Buster stopped.

"Oh, they sat under the famous Omelette Tree of Gotham and egged each other on, and poached. They also boiled—with indignation."

"Poached what? Boiled what?"

"Eggs. They scrambled up the2"

"Funny-Dog! " said the Vice suddenly, and Buster collapsed. (Later the President told the Vice that he had been severe and premature—and in the presence of the President—a little presumptuous. He would have had a perfect right to make any comment had he been in the Chair. Privately the President entirely agreed with the Vice. The story should have stopped short of egg-puns. They are so banal, though banal is not the word the President used. In fact she used no word at all, but merely felt that egg-puns are distinctly of the Funny-Dog tribe and required a lot of elevating into Tosh.)

"It was distinct Tosh until you fell among eggs. Buster," said Daddy.

"Yes," agreed the President. "Tell us it again without boiling eggs with indignation."

"Tell it like Miss Ha-Ha in the Higher Water," begged the Vice. "You know Minnie Ha-Ha."

And Buster, who had a well-known gift that way, burst into saga of familiar metre:—

"Two Wise Men that were of Gotham, You have heard ere this of Gotham? In a bowl went not to sea they. Loved they well their Universi- Ty of Dantzig and were always Doing it in season. Out of Season also did they do it. If you ask me what they did do, All that I can say is 'Dantzig'. Dantzig there in famous Gotham, Dantzig each one with the other. One he lepped so much in Dantzig He at last became a leper. Bounding so high went his brother That men said he was a Bounder. Said he was an awful Bounder. From the Dantzig Club they thrust them, Búnged thěm fórth něm íně cóntrǎ Dí cěn té yǒu'll únděrstánd mě, Bút thǐs métrě spóils thě quántǐ Tiés ǒf thém thěre Látǐn wórdsěs. …"

"Funny-Dog!" said Mummy suddenly.

And with a cry of "Comfort me, Old Thing!" Buster laid his head in Boodle's lap and wept.

"Try again, darling," said Boodle. … "What did they wear?"

"Breeches of Faith and breeches of Promise," was the reply.

"What is those?" asked the Vice.

"Well, when they ordered breeches and got them on tick, they were breeches of Faith, but when the clothes-cook took their measure and never sent the things, they were breeches of Promise," explained Buster.