It disconcerted him a little to see how seriously everybody settled down to listen, and how red his brother’s face turned as he took a back seat among the seniors. Never mind. Wait till they heard his song. That would fetch them!
He had carefully studied not only the song but the appropriate action. As he knew perfectly well, there is one invariable attitude for a comic song. The head must be tilted a little to one side. One eyebrow must be raised and the opposite corner of the mouth turned down. One knee should be slightly bent; the first finger and thumb of one hand should rest gracefully in the waistcoat pocket, and the other hand should be free for gesture.
All these points Fisher minor attended to now as carefully as his nervousness would permit, and felt half amused at the thought of how comic the fellows must think him.
“Do you—” he began.
But at this point Ranger unfeelingly interrupted, and put the vocalist completely out.
“Did you say ‘Oh no’ or ‘How now’?”
“Oh no,” repeated the singer.
“You mean h-o-w n-o-w?”
“Oh no; it’s o-h n-o.”
“Thanks—sorry to interrupt. Fire away.” Fisher tried to get himself back into attitude, and began again in a thin treble voice;—