"Very good song," said the King. "Does you credit, Drum Major. Now, get your breath again and sing us another. Something about Frances this time."
"Please do," begged Frances, coming forward with Periwinkle under her arm. "Something about me and Periwinkle—or is that too difficult?"
"Not at all," replied Lobsterneck. "Simplest thing possible. Just a moment."
So saying, he took his fountain pen from behind his ear, and spreading the music on the door-step of the tower, he scratched out "Margaret's Tea Party", and wrote instead, "Frances and the Spotted Pup." Having done so, he sat up straight once more, tucked his pen behind his ear, thumped his chest two or three times, just to see if his scales were in tune, and began again:
"One summer day as Frances went
A-walking up the street,
She met a little spotted pup
Who had a piece of meat.
Said Frances to the spotted pup,
'If you eat all of that,
I greatly fear, my little Dear,
You'll grow a deal too fat'."
Once more everybody joined in the chorus, though the words were almost entirely different:
"For, Oh! For, Oh!
There surely is no question,
That if you gobble your meals too fast
You'll have the indigestion."
With his eye fixed on Periwinkle, as if to remind him that he was the subject of his song, the dragon went on:
"The spotted pup, he shut one eye
And gave a little squeak.
He could not talk, because his mouth
Was much too full to speak.