"Peace, thou scurvy knave! Dost dare to speak slightingly of the great Robin Hood and his Merry Men? Have a care, thou pestiferous Squirm, lest I order thy foul tongue to be torn from its roots by red-hot pincers."
"Oh, stop your high-falutin' rot and give me back my grub. If you don't----"
"As sure as my name's Peter Mawdster I'll report the whole boiling of you to the Captain of the School!"
"Yah! Sneak! Hound! Soapless Squirm! Down with him, Merry Men! Slug the crawling viper!"
"Hold, Merry Men!" It was the shrill voice of Robin, raised high in command. "Soil not your honest hands with the watery blood of this rapscallion. Spread yourselves around, so that there may be no escape for him from the depths of this noble Forest. I would have speech with him--words of serious import indeed!"
Hugely enjoying the sport, the Merry Men drew round Peter Mawdster a cordon that it would have been hopeless to attempt to break.
"Now, Mawdster, black-handed imp of the printing press, slimiest of Squirms," began Robin, "venture to ope thy sloppy mouth during this speech o' mine, and my trusty fellows shall immediately stuff it full of holly leaves and clay, which will please thee less than the greasy provender which has made thee fat and scant of breath. Know now the two charges that are laid against thee--firstly, that thou didst carry to school a disgustingly hoggish hoard of costly viands, which, rather than share with thy dormitory in the time-honoured Foxenby fashion, thou didst bring into the Shrubbery and endeavour to conceal there, like a dirty overfed dog with a surplus bone."
"I didn't!" denied Peter. "If you'd only waited I was going to ask everybody to share."
Hoots of derision from his captors greeted this assertion.
"Villain! Thou liest in thy teeth! Make not thy odious crime worse by perjury, or thou shalt fare ill at our hands. If he speaks again before I've finished, Merry Men, bung up his mealy mouth!"
"Ay, ay, worthy leader!" shouted the gleeful band.
"Thou hearest, toad of a Squirm? Silence, on thy life! Charge Number Two against thee is that thou didst, of malice aforethought, bring to Foxenby a garbled story about its honoured Captain--to wit, that at ye royal and ancient sign of Ye Anvil Inn, in ye historic and flyblown borough of Moston, he did single out and do grievous bodily harm to a gaping, flabby, half-baked clodhopper who could make no show of resistance.