"Can naught soothe and charm your savage breast?" Lute pleaded in soulful tones while she studied her chances for escape.
"One thing only, miserable female. One thing only, on the earth, over the earth, and under its ruining waters--"
A squawk of recognized plagiarism interrupted him from Ernestine.
"See Ernest Dowson, page seventy-nine, a thin book of thin verse ladled out with porridge to young women detentioned at Mills Seminary," Forrest went on. "As I had already enunciated before I was so rudely interrupted, the one thing only that can balm and embalm this savage breast is the 'Maiden's Prayer.' Listen, with all your ears ere I chew them off in multitude and gross! Listen, silly, unbeautiful, squat, short-legged and ugly female under the piano! Can you recite the 'Maiden's Prayer'?"
Screams of delight from the young things in the doorways prevented the proper answer and Lute, from under the piano, cried out to young Wainwright, who had appeared: "A rescue, Sir Knight! A rescue!"
"Unhand the maiden!" was Bert's challenge.
"Who art thou?" Forrest demanded.
"King George, sirrah!--I mean, er, Saint George."
"Then am I thy dragon," Forrest announced with due humility. "Spare this ancient, honorable, and only neck I have."
"Off with his head!" the young things encouraged.
"Stay thee, maidens, I pray thee," Bert begged. "I am only a Small Potato. Yet am I unafraid. I shall beard the dragon. I shall beard him in his gullet, and, while he lingeringly chokes to death over my unpalatableness and general spinefulness, do you, fair damsels, flee to the mountains lest the valleys fall upon you. Yolo, Petaluma, and West Sacramento are about to be overwhelmed by a tidal wave and many big fishes."
"Off with his head!" the young things chanted. "Slay him in his blood and barbecue him!"
"Thumbs down," Forrest groaned. "I am undone. Trust to the unstrained quality of mercy possessed by Christian young women in the year 1914 who will vote some day if ever they grow up and do not marry foreigners. Consider my head off, Saint George. I am expired. Further deponent sayeth not."
And Forrest, with sobs and slubberings, with realistic shudders and kicks and a great jingling of spurs, lay down on the floor and expired.
Lute crawled out from under the piano, and was joined by Rita and Ernestine in an extemporized dance of the harpies about the slain.
In the midst of it, Forrest sat up, protesting. Also, he was guilty of a significant and privy wink to Lute.