“So say I,” said the butcher. “He has twice sent some one to condemn my scales.”
“Sing us a song, somebody,” cried Britton. “A song I say, I say. Do you hear!”
“Gentlemen—gentlemen—a song from some of you, if you please,” cried the landlord, bustling among the guests. “You hear that his majesty is musically inclined.”
“Well, gentlemen,” said a small man, with a twisted lace coat, “I don’t mind if I try my hand at a stave.”
There was a great thumping of tankards upon the tables, and cries of “Bravo!” in the middle of which the man who had volunteered the song commenced in a wheezing tone as follows:—
The Triple Tree
“Of all the trees that’s in the land,
There’s none like that I wot of;
The blossoms big upon this tree
Ne’er hang until they rot off.