“Th—hat’s all right, Ellerton; you’ll help me sing, won’t you? Now, I’m going to sing:
“Then fill up your glasses—and your tumbler ‘sand your goblets,
And drink to the health of it—all up and ask—for more”——
“Oh, we’ve had enough of that, Smith. Sing us something, or we will have to try Peepsy, here,” said Trickley, who had been trying to make Peepsy say something all the evening.
“Vive la! vive la compagnic!” I sang, winding up with a hiccup.
“Smith, that’s stale, and boring as the devil,” said Ellerton; “hush! and let us hear the Fresh sing.”
I was too stupid to make any reply, but made out to hear poor little Peepsy protest that he knew but one song in the world, and that was a hymn. But they would all take no refusal, and swore that unless he sang it they would tie him and leave him in the street all night, a threat he implicitly believed. I was almost in a second doze when I heard his little, quivering voice, as he sang:
“I love to steal a while away,” etc.
A song learned at his mother’s knee rendered in a drunken carousal! Poor little fellow, he was not in fault!
Ellerton now proposed that we light our cigars and go up to the campus to have some fun.