But this was not all that troubled the Ten Knights in a Barroom company. Professional jealousy crept in to plague their once placid ranks. By secretly consulting the faded poster in Severn's blacksmith shop (from which he had adapted the name for his production) Sube learned that he had overlooked a character. The next time the company assembled he attempted to rectify his error.
"Say, you kids," he began; "we made a mistake about one thing. You can't all be Old Soaks. Somebody's got to be a little ragged girl that pleads with her drunken father to come home with her. Now who's goin' to be the little girl?"
Cathead thought he scented a conspiracy, and wishing to be on the safe side, volunteered to take the part of the drunken father.
"Not on your life!" cried Sube. "Somebody's got to be a little girl, and you'd make the best one of anybody here. Wouldn't he, kids?"
Stucky and Cottontop were positive that Cathead would make an ideal girl, and they so expressed themselves. But Cathead thought otherwise.
"I won't be a girl! I ain't goin' to be a girl! I never been one and I ain't ever goin' to be one!" he insisted.
"Now looka here, Cathead—" Gizzard began pleadingly.
"I won't look there! And I won't be a girl! I'll be a drunken father, but I'll never be a girl!"
"But somebody's got to be a girl!" Sube urged desperately. "Now who's it goin' to be?"