appeared these
portentous letters:

B U T T E N

"Faith, an' it's a cliver boy y'are," said Mr Button admiringly, as he
leaned luxuriously against a cocoa-nut tree, and contemplated Dick's
handiwork. "And that's me name, is it? What's the letters in it?"

Dick enumerated them.

"I'll teach you to do it, too," he said. "I'll teach you to write your
name, Paddy--would you like to write your name, Paddy?"

"No," replied the other, who only wanted to be let smoke his pipe in
peace; "me name's no use to me."

But Dick, with the terrible gadfly tirelessness of childhood, was not
to be put off, and the unfortunate Mr Button had to go to school
despite himself. In a few days he could achieve the act of drawing upon
the sand characters somewhat like the above, but not without prompting,
Dick and Emmeline on each side of him, breathless for fear of a mistake.

"Which next?" would ask the sweating scribe, the perspiration pouring
from his forehead--"which next? An' be quick, for it's moithered I am."

"N. N--that's right. Ow, you're making it crooked!--THAT'S
right--there! it's all there now--Hurroo!"

"Hurroo!" would answer the scholar, waving his old hat over his own
name, and "Hurroo!" would answer the cocoa-nut grove echoes; whilst the
far, faint "Hi, hi!" of the wheeling gulls on the reef would come over
the blue lagoon as if in acknowledgment of the deed, and encouragement.

The appetite comes with teaching. The pleasantest mental exercise of
childhood is the instruction of one's elders. Even Emmeline felt this.
She took the geography class one day in a timid manner, putting her
little hand first in the great horny fist of her friend.

"Mr Button!"

"Well, honey?"

"I know g'ography."

"And what's that?" asked Mr Button.

This stumped Emmeline for a moment.

"It's where places are," she said at last.

"Which places?" enquired he.

"All sorts of places," replied Emmeline. "Mr Button!"

"What is it, darlin'?"

"Would you like to learn g'ography?"

"I'm not wishful for larnin'," said the other hurriedly. "It makes me
head buzz to hear them things they rade out of books."

"Paddy," said Dick, who was strong on drawing that afternoon, "look
here." He drew the following on the sand:

[Illustration: A bad drawing of an elephant]

"That's an elephant," he said in a dubious voice.

Mr Button grunted, and the sound was by no means filled with
enthusiastic assent. A chill fell on the proceedings.

Di