“Merry verses or none, however,” declared Gaffer Hext. “What Sweetland says be proper. Ban’t a comely thing to gloat over a man when he’s down. Sim have got five years—an’ that’s prose; an’ ’tis more than any man can do to make it poetry. So let’s have what you’ve writ to-day of Minnie Sweetland an’ Dan—that or nought.”
Johnny pulled forth his rhyme.
“I’m in your hands,” he said. “The polish be lacking, but the rhymes is there I believe. ’Tis pretty generally granted to me that, whatever be the quality when I pen verses, the quantity’s generous and the rhymes come regular.”
“Not a doubt of it, an’ you’d be a famous man if you was better knowed,” declared Mr Sweetland.
“For that matter, they as near as damn it printed a rhyme of mine in the Newton Trumpet awhile back,” answered Johnny. “I heard two months afterward, from a young man as works there, that if they hadn’t lost the poetry, ’twas as like as not they’d have put it in the paper.”
“A near shave without a doubt,” assented Prowse; “’tis any odds but they’ll print the next.”
“Order for Johnny Beer!” cried Mr Bartley.
Then the poet opened his pocket-book, smiled round about the company, and read:—
“Let the merry bells be rung
And the joyous songs be sung,