Hi-yi-yi-yippy; yippy-yea!”
Ducky sniffed.
“Why don’t you learn a tune if you want to sing?”
Neighbor looked round with puckered eyes.
“Why, I ain’t singin’—not exactly!” he answered dreamily. “I’m thinkin’—thinkin’ about your troubles and how to make ’em all come out right in the next number. I’ve got a two-story mind, you see. One of ’em is diggin’ away for you, hard, while the other one is singin’, foot-loose, or talking to you. Me and the real serious-mind, we’re studyin’ right now; we don’t hardly sense what I’m sayin’ to you. And that’s a real nice tune too. I don’t like to have you make fun of that tune. That’s a saddle song. That tune goes to a trotting horse. You try it.”
“Why, so it does!” said Ducky after a brief experiment.
“Can you make your fingers go gallop-y? Well, do it, and I’ll show you another. But don’t talk to me. I’m thinking fine and close, like walkin’ a rope; and you’ll throw me off.”
So Ducky made his fingers go gallop-y and Neighbor kept time to it:
“Percival Pulcifer Peterkin Pool,
Cloaked and mittened and ready for school;