"'Cause you'll 'ave a good way to go back again."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for one thing, I means as I don't like your looks, my chap."

And why don't you like my looks?"

"Lord!" exclaimed the smith, "'ow should I know--but I don't--of that I'm sartin sure."

"Which reminds me," said I, "of a certain unpopular gentleman of the name of Fell, or Pell, or Snell."

"Eh?" said the smith, staring.

"There is a verse, I remember, which runs, I think, in this wise:

"'I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, or Pell, or Snell, For reasons which I cannot tell; But this I know, and know full well, I do not love thee, Doctor Fell, or Pell, or Snell.'"

"So you'm a poet, eh?"

"No," said I, shaking my head.

"Then I'm sorry for it; a man don't meet wi' poets every day,"

saying which, he drew the scroll from the fire, and laid it, glowing, upon the anvil. "You was wishful to speak wi' me, I think?" he inquired.

"Yes," I answered.

"Ah!"'nodded the smith, "to be sure," and, forthwith, began to sing most lustily, marking the time very cleverly with his ponderous hand-hammer.

"If," I began, a little put out at this, "if you will listen to what I have to say" But he only hammered away harder than ever, and roared his song the louder; and, though it sounded ill enough at the time, it was a song I came to know well later, the words of which are these:

"Strike! ding! ding!

Strike! ding! ding!

The iron glows, And loveth good blows As fire doth bellows.

Strike! ding! ding!"

Now seeing he was determined to give me no chance to speak, I presently seated myself close by, and fell to singing likewise.

Oddly enough, the only thing I could recall, on the moment, was the Tinker's song, and that but very imperfectly; yet it served my purpose well enough. Thus we fell to it with a will, the different notes clashing, and filling the air with a most vile discord, and the words all jumbled up together, something in this wise:

"Strike! ding! ding!

A tinker I am, O Strike! ding! ding!

A tinker am I The iron it glows, A tinker I'll live And loveth good blows, And a tinker I'll die.

As fire doth bellows.

If the King in his crown Strike! ding! ding!

Would change places with me Strike! ding! ding!" And so forth.

The louder he roared, the louder roared I, until the place fairly rang with the din, in so much that, chancing to look through the open doorway, I saw the Ancient, with Simon, Job, and several others, on the opposite side of the way, staring, open-mouthed, as well they might. But still the smith and I continued to howl at each other with unabated vigor until he stopped, all at once, and threw down his hammer with a clang.

"Dang me if I like that voice o' yourn!" he exclaimed.

"Why, to be sure, I don't sing very often," I answered.

"Which, I mean to say, is a very good thing; ah! a very good thing!"

"Nor do I pretend to sing--"

"Then why do 'ee try now?"

"For company's sake."

"Well, I don't like it; I've 'ad enough of it."

"Then," said I, "suppose you listen to what I have to say?"

"Not by no manner o' means."

"Then what do you propose to do?"

"Why," said the smith, rising and stretching himself, "since you ax me, I'm a-goin' to pitch you out o' yon door."

"You may try, of course," said I, measuring the distance between us with my eye, "but if you do, seeing you are so much the bigger and stronger man, I shall certainly fetch you a knock with this staff of mine which I think you will remember for many a day."

So saying, I rose and stepped out into the middle of the floor.

Black George eyed me slowly up from the soles of my boots to the crown of my hat and down again, picked up his hammer in an undecided fashion, looked it over as if he had never seen such a thing before, tossed it into a corner, and, seating himself on the anvil, folded his arms. All at once a merry twinkle leapt into the blue depths of his eyes, and I saw the swift gleam of a smile.

"What do 'ee want--man?" said he.

Now hereupon, with a sudden gesture, I pitched my staff out through the open doorway into the road, and folded my arms across my chest, even as he.

"Why did 'ee do that?" he inquired, staring.

"Because I don't think I shall need it, after all."

"But suppose I was to come for 'ee now?"

"But you won't."

"You be a strange sort o' chap!" said he, shaking his head.

"So they tell me."

"And what does the likes o' you want wi' the likes o' me?"

"Work!"

"Know anythin' about smithin'?"

"Not a thing."

"Then why do 'ee come 'ere?"