Shoving peas in with a knife,
Because I am at heart a Vegetarian.”
He fell to his food with great gusto, dispatched a good deal of it in a very short time, threw a glance of gloomy envy at the cask, and then sprang to his feet again. He caught up the inn-sign from where it leant against the Pantomime Cottage, and planted it like a pike in the ground beside him. Then he began to sing again, in an even louder voice than before.
“O, Lord Ivywood may lop,
And his privilege is sylvan and riparian;
And is also free to top,
But–.”
“Do you know,” said Hump, also finishing his lunch, “that I’m rather tired of that particular tune?”
“Tired, is it?” said the indignant Irishman, “then I’ll sing you a longer song, to an even worse tune, about more and more vegetarians, and you shall see me dance as well; and I will dance till you burst into tears and offer me the half of your kingdom; and I shall ask for Mr. Leveson’s head on the frying-pan. For this, let me tell you, is a song of oriental origin, celebrating the caprices of an ancient Babylonian Sultan and should be performed in palaces of ivory with palm trees and a bulbul accompaniment.”
And he began to bellow another and older lyric of his own on vegetarianism.