Page:TASJ-1-3.djvu/275

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to give up their festivities. Lusmore fell asleep and when he awoke ho found himself again on the bank outside the moat. He got up rubbed his eyes, and felt his back, and found that true enough he was rid of his hump. He went back rejoicing and told all the neighbours how he had danced and sung with the elves, and how they had taken off his hump. The story soon got wind and all the neighbourhood came to see Lusmore and congratulate him upon his good fortune. Now there was another humpback at Knockgrafton known by the name of Jack Madden, au ill-conditioned young scamp whom nobody liked. His mother was an envious old crone who did nothing but murmur at Lusmore’s back and wondered why the same did net happen to her son Jack. By her advice Jack Madden went and laid himself one day down by the moat, and there sure enough he heard the fairies singing their song with Lusmore’s elegant addition—“Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday too.” Now Jack Madden, who was as deficient in taste as he was in voice, thought to himself if Lusmore pleased the fairies by adding another day to their song, why should not I do better still by adding all the rest of the week,—so without waiting for a pause, or paying any regard to time or measure, he began in a harsh loud voice shouting out Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Now the fairies have not only an exquisite ear for rhythm and time, but they have also a peculiar aversion to hear the Lord’s day named. No sooner therefore had Jack Madden commenced this tasteless uproar than he found himself whirled into the moat and surrounded by fierce-looking fairies. Two of the strongest of these, by orders from the chief, took up Lusmore’s hump which was still lying about, and clapped it on Jack Madden’s back, where it instantly stuck as tight as wax. Then they all sang

Jack Madden, Jack Madden!
Your words came so bad in
The tune we feel glad in.—
This castle you’r had in
That your life we may sadden,
Here’s two humps for Jack Madden—