Читать книгу Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of All Ages онлайн

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Old King Cole was a merry old soul,

And a merry old soul was he;

He called for his pipe,

And he called for his bowl,

And he called for his fiddlers three....

Now, suppose, instead of these four lines of the rhyme you put:—

Old King Cole was a jolly old man,

The jolliest old man alive;

He called for his cup, and he called for a pipe

And he called for his fiddlers five.

By so doing you have actually added two extra fiddlers; and yet somehow you have taken away some of the old three's music. Or you may put:—

'Cole the First was now a monarch advanced in age, and of a convivial temperament. On any festive occasion he would bid his retainers bring him his goblet and smoking materials, and would command his musicians to entertain him on their violins: which they did.'

Well, all the facts are there and many more words, but scarcely a trace of my old King Cole, and not a single tweedle-eedle of the fiddling. Would anyone trouble to learn that by heart?

Now underneath this rhyme Mr. Nahum had written a sort of historical account of King Cole, a good deal of it in German and other languages. All I could make out of it was this: if ever a King Cole inhabited the world, he probably had another name; that he lived too far back in history for anyone to make sure when he had lived or that he had lived at all; and that his "pipe" and "bowl" probably stand for objects much more mysterious and far less common.