“No,” said Ellis slowly, with a mocking chuckle, “it’d take more than a mouse to scare you—we know that! Come! I’ll trade you aliases. I haven’t caught a man for over two months now.”
His mischievous meaning was only too obvious, and the girl colored to her laughing eyes, grabbing, next instant, a ball of wool from Mrs. Trainor’s lap, which she shied at him.
Benton, dodging this missile, gazed piercingly at her for several seconds without moving a muscle of his face; then, suddenly swinging around on the music-stool, he brought down his hands with a crash of chords and, in a great rollicking voice and a broad Somersetshire dialect, commenced to sing a bucolic love ditty. Something that went:
“Vor if yeou conzents vor tu marry I now,
Whoy—Vather ’e’ll gie uns ’is old vat zow!
With a rum dum—dum dum—dubble dum day!”
“Boo-o-oo! La, la, la!” shrilled poor Mary, covering her ears. “Oh, please, Mrs. Trainor, do make him stop!”
“What’s the use, my dear?” cried that merry dame, in great amusement. “He wouldn’t listen to me. He’s too impudent for anything.”
While Trainor slapped his thigh and guffawed uproariously.
“Oh, oh!” screamed the girl, stamping and pirouetting about the room, “he’s starting another verse! Oh, quit, quit, quit! or I’ll start in opposition! I’ll make such a noise they won’t be able to hear you!”
And at the top of her voice she started to declaim lustily:
“Arrah, go on! You’re only tazin!
Arrah, go on! You’re somethin’ awful!
Arrah, go on! You’re mighty plazin!
Oh, arrah go way! go wid yer! go way! go on!”