To-day he took the middle of the ring and beamed cheerfully on them all as they swayed back and forth and sang to him:
Now Eddie if you’ll teach us
A new game to play,
We’ll watch you and try to
Do just as you say!
There was a slight poetic exaggeration in the idea of Eddy Brown’s being able to teach anybody anything new, but this was felt by no one but the youngest assistant, who, recalling his regular programme upon such occasions, smiled somewhat sardonically.
“’Tripping lightly as we go.’”
As she had expected, Eddy inclined to play “Tripping lightly as we go.” His conception of the process implied in the song was a laborious jumping up on one toe and down on the other. This exercise he would keep up till the crack of doom if undiverted from it. When induced to stop, he signalled to Joseph Zukoffsky to take his place. Joseph, on being tunefully implored to produce something new in the way of a game, declared for “Did you ever see a laddie?” and the ring started in blithely:
Did you ever see a laddie, a laddie, a laddie;