But there was no time to indulge in retrospect, for Edmund had already settled the programme. "Sing!" he commanded. "Sing, man!"
"I fear," Mr. Wycherly said, somewhat breathlessly, for Edmund was sitting upon that portion of his body known in sporting circles as "the wind," "that I cannot sing, for I don't know any songs."
"Say, zen, say, man," Edmund cried, jumping up and down upon poor Mr. Wycherly's yielding frame.
"He means you to say him a poem," Montagu explained.
Now of poetry Mr. Wycherly knew plenty, both in Greek and Latin and English, but none of it seemed particularly suitable to the present circumstances. The only lines that came willingly to his call were—
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste,
which he felt would meet with but scant approval from his present audience.
"Say 'ime, say 'ime, man!" cried Edmund, with an ominous droop of the corners of his mouth.
"Say 'Hickory, dickory, dock," Montagu suggested kindly, "he likes that—and you tickle him where it runs up, and where it runs down, and at the end, you know."
"But I don't know any poem called 'Hickory, dickory, dock," Mr. Wycherly protested despairingly.