“In what kind?” returns Jack, waving his hat over his head.
“A song! a song!” they answer.
“Which one?” asks he, nothing loath, for his lungs are lusty and his reputation for singing above the ordinary.
“What you will,” they answer.
“Well, then, what say you to ‘Lady Betty Takes the Air,’ since all can join me in the chorus?”
“Good!”
“Percy,” says Jack, “you’ve a pretty pipe in your throat; give me the key, will you? not too high, you rascal, I’m not vainglorious at my music. So, and, so—there,” as Percy does as he is asked.
When all the May is deck’d about
With hawthorn bud and blow;
When pinkly shows the heather’s tip,