“Ingle-go-jang!” he chanted, and slipped out a warm but coy land-tortoise.
“My Sacred Hat!” cried Stalky. “Brer Terrapin! Where you catchee? What you makee-do aveck?”
This was Stalky’s notion of how they talked in Uncle Remus; and he spake no other tongue for weeks.
“I don’t know yet; but I had to get him. ’Man with a barrow full of ’em in Bridge Street. ’Gave me my choice for a bob. Leave him alone, you owl! He won’t swim where you’ve been washing your filthy self! ‘I’m right at home, my joy, my joy.’” Dick’s nose shone like Bardolph’s as he bubbled in the bath.
Just before tea-time, he, “Pussy,” and Tertius broke in upon Number Five, processionally, singing:
“Ingle-go-jang, my joy, my joy!
Ingle-go-jang, my joy!
I’m right at home, my joy, my joy!
Ingle-go-jang, my joy.”
Brer Terrapin, painted or and sable—King’s House-colours—swung by a neatly contrived belly-band from the end of a broken jumping-pole. They thought rather well of taking him in to tea. They called at one or two studies on the way, and were warmly welcomed; but when they reached the still shut doors of the dining-hall (Richards, ex-Petty Officer, R. N., was always unpunctual—but they needn’t have called him “Stinking Jim”) the whole school shouted approval. After the meal, Brer Terrapin was borne the round of the form-rooms from Number One to Number Twelve, in an unbroken roar of homage.