“Well, sir, if I found it in its old form, like a hare, and started it fresh, it may do for folks to run after as well as anything else. But you shan't escape your misdemeanour in mauling those verses as you have done, by finding fault with my joke redevivus. You read those lines, sir, like a bellman, without any attention to metre.”
“To be sure,” said Father Phil, who had been listening for some time; “they have a ring in them—”
“Like a pig's nose,” said the doctor.
“Ah, be aisy,” said Father Phil. “I say they have a ring in them like an owld Latin canticle—
'What will you do, love, when I am go-ing,
With white sail flow-ing,
The says beyond?'
That's it!”
“To be sure,” said the doctor. “I vote for the Father's reading them out on the spot.”
“Pray, do, Mister Blake,” said Fanny.
“Ah, Miss Dawson, what have I to do with reading love verses?”
“Take the book, sir,” said Growling, “and show me you have some faith in your own sayings, by obeying a lady directly.”