"Phyllis! I say, Phyllis!" cried John, working his hairbrushes alternately. "I am Corin. Who was Harpalus?"
"You flatter yourself, sir," replied Phyllis "I am pining for Harpalus."
"Tell me his last name, then, that I may seek and slay him!" said John.
Between stanzas, John forgot the air, but he improvised anew, and sang on, regardless.
"'Oh, Harpalus!' thus would he say;
Unhappiest under sunne!
The cause of thine unhappy daye,
By love was first begunne.
"'But wel-a-way! that nature wrought
Thee, Phillida, so faire:
For I may say that I have bought
Thy beauty al to deare.'"
"Cheer up, Harpalus!" Phyllis waved her hand through the half-open doorway. "Faint heart never won fair lady!"
"He is too far gone," said John. "Besides, I, Corin, have nine-tenths of the law on him.
"'O Cupide, graunt this my request,
And do not stoppe thine eares.'"
The song ceased while John tugged at his collar. When the button finally slipped in, he muttered:—