horrified; and he
began in a loud, hurried voice, from which every hint of intelligence
was excluded:

"Most pottent, grave, and rev--"

The teacher tapped sharply on her desk, and stopped him. "You've
forgotten to bow," she said. "And don't say 'pottent.' The word is
'potent'."

Ramsey flopped his head at the rear wall of the room, and began again:

"Most pottent potent gray and revenerd signers my very nobe and approve
good masters that I have tan away this sole man's dutter it is mose true
true I have marry dur the very headman frun tuv my fending hath this
extent no more rude am I in speech--in speech--rude am I in speech--in
speech--in speech--in speech--"

He had stalled. Perhaps the fatal truth of that phrase, and some sense
of its applicability to the occasion had interfered with the mechanism
which he had set in operation to get rid of the "recitation" for him.
At all events, the machine had to run off its job all at once, or it
wouldn't run at all. Stopped, it stayed stopped, and backing off granted
no new impetus, though he tried, again and again. "Hath this extent
no more rude am I in speech--" He gulped audibly. "Rude rude rude am
I--rude am I in speech--in speech--in speech. Rude am I in speech--"

"Yes," the irritated teacher said, as Ramsey's failing voice continued
huskily to insist upon this point. "I think you are!" And her nerves
were a little soothed by the shout of laughter from the school--it was
never difficult for teachers to be witty. "Go sit down, Ramsey, and do
it after school."

His ears roaring, the unfortunate went to his seat, and, among all
the hilarious faces, one stood out--Dora Yocum's. Her laughter was
precocious; it was that of a confirmed superior, insufferably adult--she
was laughing at him as a grown person laughs at a child. Conspicuously
and unmistakably, there was something indulgent in her amusement. He
choked. Here was a little squirt of a high-school girl who would trot
up to George Washington himself and show off around him, given the
opportunity; and George Washington would probably pat her on the head,
or give her a medal--or something. Well, let him! Ramsey didn't care.
He didn't care for George Washington, or Paul Revere, or Shakespeare, or
any of 'em. They could all go to the dickens with Dora Yocum. They were
all a lot of smarties anyway and he hated the whole stew of 'em!

There was one, however, whom he somehow couldn't manage to hate, even
though this o