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These are the schoolboys who learn from the scholars who read the poets who sing of the boys who built the walls that go round the town that Romulus and Remus built.

This is the book which is read by the schoolboys who learn from the scholars who read the poets who sing of the boys who built the walls that go round the town that Romulus and Remus built.]

Rem.
Bravo, Romly. Let’s start work at once.
You build the walls, I’ll manage the finance.

[Enter Chorus of Boys derisively.]

Remus and Romulus built up a wall.

Romulus and Remus, mind you don’t fall.
(Strophe) Romulus and Remus, nice pair of
schemers,
How does your city grow?
Bricks and cabbages, sticks and rubbishes,
And mud pies all anyhow.

1. The author is not quite sure what strophe and antistrophe mean, but they appear to come in tragically here.

2. Rubbishes is apparently the nearest rhyme to cabbages which the chorus can lay hands on for the moment.

(Antistrophe)
Hee-haw, Remus can saw,
Romulus tries to make plaster.
They shall have a penny a day,
What a pity they cannot work faster!

Rom. (throwing stones).
Aroint thee! Hold your row! Shut up! Go home.
Don’t interfere with men who are building Rome.

Rem. (sings).
‘Mid damp clay and sandy chalk, and blue slate and loam,
Be it ever so Roman, there’ll be no town like Rome.
So all do your worst, we care not who come,
There’s no town like Rome, there’s no town like Rome.
Rome! Rome! Great, great Rome!
There’s no town like Rome, there’s no town like Rome.

Chorus, disgusted.
How do these busy little lads
Delight to toil and fag,
And swagger like a pair of cads,
And boast and crow and brag.
(Exeunt with their noses in the air.)

Rom.
Thank goodness they are gone. Now, old chap, to work.
Sit up! you’re getting lazy. Come, don’t shirk.

Rem. (turning red).
I getting lazy! Like your awful cheek!
I’ve done more in a day than you in a week.

Rom.
Ha, ha! ho, he! My! that’s a pretty joke.
Look what I’ve done. You’ve hardly done a stroke.

Rem.
If that’s your tune, you’re free to do it all.
Your work, indeed! Do you call this a wall?
I’d hop it on one foot. Ho, ho! A pretty town.
A puff of wind would blow your rampart down.

Rom.
Hop it, you ass? I’d like to see you try.
I promise you shall know the reason why.

Rem. (laughing).
Stupid old Romulus
Sat on a tumulus
Trying to build a town,
There came this young brother,
One foot over t’other,
And knocked his precious wall down.
Hurroo! here goes! stand clear! this for your wall!
What care I if from now to Christmas Day you bawl?
(Hops over the wall, knocking off the top course.)
Missed it! Hard luck! I’ll try again! Stand by!
I guess I ought to clear what’s barely three feet high.

Rom. (aside).
I’ve stood this long enough! The time has come
When I or Remus, single-handed, must build Rome.
Ho! stay thy impious foot, thou scoffing mule,
Or I will slay thee! Cease to play the fool!

Rem. (sings).
Over the city wall, over the city wall,
See how we bump, hop, skip, and jump,
Over the city wall.

(Jumps again)

Rom. (picking up a scaffolding-pole).
Thy doom is sealed!
I said I’d kill thee! Ha!
‘Tis thy last jump! Thou hoppest never more!