"Oh, really," said Robin politely, "I beg your pardon. But why this sheaf of corn behind the goal? Queer place for a wheatsheaf, isn't it?"
"Wheatsheaf be blowed!" cried Little John, indignantly. "Robin, you ought to get some spectacles. That's Fluffy Jim in his paper costume."
"All serene," agreed Robin. "I'll put a cross over his head and write his name underneath the picture, so's everybody will know. Passed for publication. Next gentleman, please!"
The boy who was called Friar Tuck approached him and handed him a sheet of verse.
"What's this?" asked Robin "'Musick in ye Forest'. Why the 'k' in 'music', Friar?"
"That's how they used to spell it in those days," said the Friar.
"But those days aren't these days," said Robin. "Here, get your heads out of the light, you two, while I read the first verse."
Heedless of the self-conscious blushes of the embarrassed poet, he commenced to read:—
"'In ye forest of Ancient Sherwood,
Where the deer so blithely skip,
There strode the doughty Robin Hood
With a horn upon his lip.'
Here, shiver my timbers, this is weird," commented Robin. "What's Robin Hood want with a horn upon his lip? He's not a stag or a bull! Even if he were either, horns grow on foreheads, don't they?"