With a curious little chuckle and a sudden cock of his head as though trying to locate the source of so unfamiliar a sound, Lost Man reached out for the great long-handled camp spider and 118 began quite unexpectedly to thrum it like a banjo, as, shaking his shaggy mane out of his eyes, he burst into song:
"Diaphenia, like a daffadown dilly,
White as the sun, fair as the lily,
Heigho—Heigho——"
With a tiny scream Daphne swung back to ward her father.
"Why, Old-Dad!" she cried. "He's calling me 'Diaphenia'! It's an old, old song! Oh, an awfully old, old English song! It's in the Golden Treasury! You learn it in college! You never in the world would know it if you hadn't been to college!"
"Well, switch him back to the swearing if you'd like it better!" called her father. But already, with a leap and a run, he was on his way to prove the phenomenon with his own ears and eyes.
Quaveringly, but with determinate gallantry, Lost Man's guttural old voice carried the tuneful memory.
"Diaphenia like to all things blessed,
When all thy praises are expressed,