A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!”
“Be that all?” said the old Jacky-Toad.
“Ess, ’tis,” answered the reciter, immorally concealing the fact that there were eight other verses which he had not been able to learn.
“Well, then, ’tis as silly a bit o’ man’s twaddle as ever I heard. Doan’t ’mount to nothin’ so far as I can see.”
“’Tis poetry,” said the Jacky-Toad feebly.
“What’s rhyme wi’out reason? No better’n water wi’out mud. You’ve bin wastin’ your time somethin’ shockin’—that’s what you’ve bin doin’. I could ’a taught ’e more in this ’ere bog than what you’ve got in Lunnon, seemin’ly.”
“Is that all you knaw?” asked a very young Jacky-Toad, who had no ambitions of his own, and could therefore afford to be sympathetic.
“Yes—that’s all,” said the wanderer. Then he turned away his face, and his little eyes blinked and he wept.
“Poor fule,” commented the ancient Jacky-Toad; “you never ought to a left the quag. What’s the gude o’ the like o’ you gwaine to foreign paarts? Wheer theer’s no brains by nature, theer ban’t nothin’ for larnin’ to catch hold upon.”