"Are you Black George?" I inquired. At the sound of my voice, he let go the handle of the bellows, and turned; as I watched, I saw his brows draw suddenly together, while the golden hairs of his beard seemed to curl upward. "Suppose I be?" "Then I wish to speak with you." "Be that what you'm come for?" "Yes." "Be you come far?" "Yes." "That's a pity." "Why?" "'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.