"Yes," I answered.
"Ah!"'nodded the smith, "to be sure," and, forthwith, began to sing most lustily, marking the time very cleverly with his ponderous hand-hammer.
"If," I began, a little put out at this, "if you will listen to what I have to say" But he only hammered away harder than ever, and roared his song the louder; and, though it sounded ill enough at the time, it was a song I came to know well later, the words of which are these:
"Strike! ding! ding!
Strike! ding! ding!
The iron glows,
And loveth good blows
As fire doth bellows.
Strike! ding! ding!"
Now seeing he was determined to give me no chance to speak, I presently seated myself close by, and fell to singing likewise. Oddly enough, the only thing I could recall, on the moment, was the Tinker's song, and that but very imperfectly; yet it served my purpose well enough. Thus we fell to it with a will, the different notes clashing, and filling the air with a most vile discord, and the words all jumbled up together, something in this wise:
"Strike! ding! ding!
A tinker I am, O
Strike! ding! ding!
A tinker am I
The iron it glows,
A tinker I'll live
And loveth good blows,
And a tinker I'll die.
As fire doth bellows.
If the King in his crown
Strike! ding! ding!
Would change places with me
Strike! ding! ding!" And so forth.
The louder he roared, the louder roared I, until the place fairly rang with the din, in so much that, chancing to look through the open doorway, I saw the Ancient, with Simon, Job, and several others, on the opposite side of the way, staring, open-mouthed, as well they might. But still the smith and I continued to howl at each other with unabated vigor until he stopped, all at once, and threw down his hammer with a clang.
"Dang me if I like that voice o' yourn!" he exclaimed.
"Why, to be sure, I don't sing very often," I answered.
"Which, I mean to say, is a very good thing; ah! a very good thing!"