And people call me the Pied Piper.’
(And here they noticed round his neck 80
A scarf of red and yellow stripe,
To match with his coat of the self-same cheque;
And at the scarf’s end hung a pipe;
And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying,
As if impatient to be playing 85
Upon this pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old-fangled.)
‘Yet,’ said he, ‘poor Piper as I am,