If you are ready, it's got to ill-fare it then with Brodrick Two when on the ground his Taj he threw, whose studs of brass and tough bull-hide had death so often dashed aside. They are bone studs of Daddy's because he hadn't any studs of brass, and didn't seem to want to lend any gold ones. And the bull's hide is card-board—but it's a Taj all-right."
"I thought the Taj was a hotel," observed Fitz- James. "I wemember we went . . ."
"You're too fond of thinking, James Fizz," interrupted Roderic. "What about Blue Murder—no, Red Murdoch—I mean?"
Fitz-James's eye gleamed. He had his cue. "He's staff and stick," he said.
"He's what, you ass?" queried Roderic coldly.
"He's stark and stiff," the other corrected, and, striking the attitude shown him by the President at rehearsal, and confirmed by the picture, he declaimed:—
The wriggle is already dead
And I wemember what you said—
Er—and beneath the whiff
There lies Red Murdoch stark and stiff."
