_.) Well, do as the lady said,
tell us something you _do_ know.

_2nd Wrenboy_: (_Standing up, excited_.) I know
the way to make bird-lime, steeping willow rods in
the stream....

_3rd Wrenboy_: I know how to use my fists; I
knocked a tinker bigger than myself.

_4th Wrenboy_: I am the best at wrestling. I
knocked _him_self. (_Pointing at 3rd_.)

_5th Wrenboy_: I that can skin a fawn after
catching him running!

_2nd Dowager Messenger_. Where now did you get
that learning?

_5th Wrenboy_: Here and there, rambling the
woods, sleeping out at night. I would never
starve in any place where grass grows!

_1st Dowager Messenger_: This is worse than
neglect. The poor old Guardian the Queen put
her trust in must be in his dotage.

_Guardian_: (_Hastily_.) Here, there is at least one
thing you will not fail in. Take the harp (_hands
it to the 1st Wrenboy_) and draw out of it sweet
sounds, (_To Dowager Messengers_.) He can play
a tune so sweet it has been known to send all the
hearers into a sound sleep. Here now, touch the
strings with all your skill.

(_1st Wrenboy bangs harp, making a crash_.)

_2nd Dowager Messenger_: (_With hands to ears_.)
Mercy! Our poor ears!

_1st Dowager Messenger_: That is the poorest
music we have ever heard.

_2nd Dowager Messenger_: That sound would send
no one into their sleep. It would be more likely
to send them into Bedlam.

_1st Dowager Messenger_: Whatever they knew
last year, they have forgotten it all now.

_Guardian_: (_Weeping into his handkerchief_.) I
don't know what has come upon them! At noon
they were the most charming lads in the whole
world. Their memory seems to have left
them!

_2nd Dowager Messenger_: It is as if another
memory had come to them. They did not learn
those wild tricks shut up in the garden.

_Servant: (To Boys_.) Can't ye behave nice and
not ugly? _(To Guardian_.) You would not believe
me a while ago. I said and I say still there is
enchantment on them, and spells.

_Guardian_: Oh, I would be sorry to think such
a thing. But they never went on this way in their
greenest youth.

_2nd Dowager Messenger_: If there is a spell upon
them what way can it be taken off?

_Servant_: It is what I always heard, that to make
a rod of iron red in the fire, and to burn the enchantment
out of them is the only way.

_Guardian_: Oh, boys, do you hear that! You
would not like to be burned with a red hot rod!
Say out now what at all is the matte