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Then Lukey, the only bachelor of mature age in the hamlet, would oblige with:

[Pg 65]

Me feyther's a hedger and ditcher, An' me mother does nothing but spin, But I'm a pretty young girl and The money comes slowly in. Oh, dear! what can the matter be? Oh, dear! what shall I do? For there's nobody coming to marry, And there's nobody coming to woo. They say I shall die an old maid, Oh, dear! how shocking the thought! For them all my beauty will fade, And I'm sure it won't be my own fault. Oh, dear! what can the matter be? Oh, dear! what shall I do? There's nobody coming to marry, And there's nobody coming to woo!

This was given point by Luke's own unmarried state. He sang it as a comic song and his rendering certainly made it one. Perhaps, then, for a change, poor old Algy, the mystery man, would be asked for a song and he would sing in a cracked falsetto, which seemed to call for the tinkling notes of a piano as accompaniment:

Have you ever been on the Penin-su-lah? If not, I advise you to stay where you haw, For should you adore a Sweet Spanish senor-ah, She may prove what some might call sin-gu-lah.

Then there were snatches that any one might break out with at any time when no one else happened to be singing: