So let us sing a roundelay—
Pop goes the Weazel;
Treacle's four pence a pound to-day,
Which we think should please all.
What the chorus had to do with the song nobody knew, but they all sang it—everybody in the street, and all the customers in the shops as well, and even the policeman sang the last line.
You take it in your hand
And set yourself a-writing;
No matter what you've planned,
The truth 'twill be inditing.
And thus you cannot fail,
To speak your mind correctly,
And honestly you'll sail,
But never indirectly.
So let us sing a roundelay—
Pop goes the Weazel;
Treacle's four pence a pound to-day,
Which we think will please all!
Again everybody danced and sang till the policeman told them to "move on," when Jorumgander the Younger put up his shutters and went away.
"A most original man," exclaimed the Zankiwank; "he ought to have been a postman!"
"A postman!—why?"
"Because he was always such a capital boy with his letters. He knew his alphabet long before he could spell, and now he knows every letter you can think of."
"I don't see anything very original in that," said Willie. "There are only twenty-six letters in the English language that he can know!"