"If you please, Uncle Dick."
"'Well, it's an oak-tree that has been struck by lightning."
"Like the one with the 'stickie-out' branches, where I once hid Auntie Lis—Her stockings?"
I nodded, and sitting down, began to pack up my fishing rod and things.
"I'm glad of that," pursued the Imp thoughtfully. "Robin Hood was always saying to somebody, 'Hie thee to the blasted oak at midnight!' an' it's nice to have one handy, you know."
I thought that under certain circumstances, and with a piece of rope, it would be very much so, "blasted" or otherwise, but I only said, "Yes" and sighed.
"'Whence that doleful visage,' Uncle Dick—I mean Little John? Is Auntie angry with you, too?"
"Yes," I answered, and sighed again.
"Oh!" said the Imp, staring, "an' do you feel like—like—wait a minute"—and once more he drew out and consulted the tattered volume—"'do you feel like hanging yourself in your sword-belt to the arm of yonder tree?'" he asked eagerly, with his finger upon a certain paragraph.
"Very like it, my Imp."