“Get all our fellows and make a jolly good row under his windows,” said Robin.
“Decidedly low,” said Allen.
“And impracticable besides,” said Bobus. “They’d kick you out before you could say Jack Robinson.”
“There was an old book of father’s,” suggested Jock, “with an old scamp who starved and licked his apprentices, till one of them dressed himself up in a bullock’s hide, horns and hoofs, and tail and all, and stood over his bed at night and shouted—
“‘Old man, old man, for thy cruelty,
Body and soul thou art given to me;
Let me but hear those apprentices’ cries,
And I’ll toss thee, and gore thee, and bore out thine eyes.’
And he was quite mild to the apprentices ever after.”
Jock acted and roared with such effect as to be encored, but Rob objected. “He ain’t got any apprentices.”
“It might be altered,” said Allen.
“Old man, old man, thy gates thou must ope,”
Bobus chimed in.