Close behind Miss Patty was the gipsy-tent-looking cart-tilt; and when the dinner was over, and there was a slight change of places, while the fragments were being cleared away and the dessert and wine were being placed on the table - that is to say, the cloth - Miss Patty, under pretence of escaping from a ray of sunshine that had pierced the trees and found its way to her face, retreated a yard or so, and crouched beneath the pseudo gipsy-tent. And what so natural but that Mr. Verdant Green should also find the sun disagreeable, and should follow his light of love, to burn his wings a little more, and flutter round her fascinations? At any rate, whether natural or no, Verdant also drew back a yard or so, and found himself half within the cart-tilt, and very close to Miss Patty. The pic-nic party were stretched at their ease upon the grass, drinking wine, munching fruit, talking, laughing, and flirting, with the blue sea before them and the bluer sky above them, when said the squire in heroic strain, "Song alone is wanting to crown our feast! Charles Larkyns, you have not only the face of a singer, but, as we all know, you have the [274 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN] voice of one. I therefore call upon you to set our minstrels an example; and, as a propitiatory measure, I beg to propose <VG274.JPG> your health, with eulogistic thanks for the song you are about to sing!" Which was unanimously seconded amid laughter and cheers; and the pop of the champagne bottles gave Charles Larkyns the key-note for his song. It was suited to the occasion (perhaps it was composed for it?), being a paean for a pic-nic, and it stated (in chorus)- "Then these aids to success Should a pic-nic possess For the cup of its joy to be brimming: Three things there should shine Fair, agreeable, and fine- The Weather, the Wine, and the Women!" A rule of pic-nics which, if properly worked out, could not fail to answer. Other songs followed; and Mr. Poletiss, being a young gentleman of a meek appearance and still meeker voice, lyrically informed the company that "Oh! he was a pirate bold, The scourge of the wide, wide sea, With a murd'rous thirst for gold, And a life that was wild and free!" And when Mr. Poletiss arrived at this point, he repeated the last word two or three times over - just as if he had been King George the Third visiting Whitbread's Brewery- "Grains, grains!" said majesty, "to fill their crops? Grains, grains! that comes from hops - yes, hops, hops, hops!"