"What—? Ashamed of your bucolic hobby! No wonder—since after all it's only a goat. I dare you, brother mine, to produce me a Theocritan fragment."
"Take the consequences of your rash levity; though I have a dawning suspicion some 'Imp of the Perverse' has coached you for the occasion."
He stroked his mustache, pondered a moment, then struck an attitude, and declaimed:
"I go a serenading to Amaryllis; what time my flocks browse on the mountains, and Tityrus drives them. Tityrus beloved of me in the highest degree, feed my flocks and lead them to the fountain, etc."
Mimicking his tone exactly, Alma finished the line:
"And mind, Tityrus, that tawny Libyan he-goat lest he butt thee!' Come, Rivers; free translation is allowable, considering surroundings, but not garbling; and every time you know you substituted flocks for goats. Proceed, and do not insult your pet author with emendations."
With his hat on the back of his head, and his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, Mr. Cutting resumed:
"Sweet Amaryllis! though by death defiled,
Thee shall I ne'er forget; dear to my heart
As are my frisking goats, thou did'st depart.
To what a lot—was I, unhappy, born!"
Again the mocking voice responded:
"But see! yon calves devour
The olive branches. Pelt them off I pray.