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112
THE YOUNG STAGERS

parties," and to the number of actors, were in course of earnest and strenuous rehearsal.

"It's no good," said the President. "Both Daddy and Buster absolutely refuse to play Goliath. I am afraid we shall have to leave it out. I should look such an ass as David if you were Goliath; everybody would laugh at David being bigger than Goliath. . . . It does spoil the idea a bit, doesn't it?"

"What did Daddy and Buthter say?" asked the Vice.

"When I told Daddy he had been chosen by the Committee—that's you and me—for a part in David and Goliath, he said, 'I'm a proud and happy man this day. I am a bit of a David when I get hold of a catapult. It must be a catapult, though. I am a rotten slinger, partly perhaps because I have never slung. Or if you haven't a catapult, I daresay I am still fairly useful at roll, bowl, or pitch. . . . That's it. . . . Give me a good ripe mango or a custard-apple, say, and I'll get a bull's eye or an inner every time.' But when I told him that he was to be