Brewer's: John Drum's Entertainment

Hauling a man by his ears and thrusting him out by the shoulders. The allusion is to “drumming” a man out of the army. There is a comedy so called, published 1601.

“When your lordship sees the bottom of his success in't ... if you give him not John Drum's entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed.” —Shakespeare: All's Well that Ends Well, iii. 6.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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