Jack. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Greatbig, I would like to change my name. Hereafter I wish to be known as Jack the Giant-Lover.
(All cheer and clap their hands. The Dear Dragon, after embracing Jack, goes to centre and recites):
O, once I was a Nawful Thing—a dread to man and child.
I snorted and cavorted till the villagers went wild.
I ate a church and steeple and three hundred pews of people,
And then I waved my crinkly tail, and bellowed, bowed, and smiled.
Of course I was a favorite when July Fourth came round,
For my firework and my smoke-murk were the finest to be found.
Why, people paid a dollar just to hear my mighty holler,
And when I breathed out ten-foot flames they fell flat on the ground.
To shorten my biography, I’ll whisper what befell.
A fire-brigade it was that made me anything but well.
They played the hose, and soaked me, and with their wall-hooks poked me,
Until I crawled away more wet and sore than I can tell.
I took a cold, and nearly died. When I grew strong again,
I could no more breathe flames, and roar from my grim mountain den.
I had no great desire, sir, to scorch the fields with fire, sir,
Or to make my meals of churches filled with chubby village men.
(Loud rapping heard.)
Giant. Come in!
Enter the Honest Robber.
Robber. Hollo, everybody. Having a tea-party, Mrs. Giantess?