"But mother forbade us to keep company with him."
"Really, Nelly," said Dick, rather sharply, "I'm old enough to choose my own friends."
"But if Pride should prove to be not a friend but an enemy? Oh, dear brother, I should be afraid to use anything that Pride recommends."
Dick burst into a laugh. "Use what you like, poor, patient, plodding little pussy; leave me to follow my own ways. You've not resolved, as I have, to win the crown of Success. You were never made to shine, unless it be like some little taper, giving its quiet light in a cottage; while I mean to dazzle the world some day, like the eruption of a splendid volcano."
"A precious lot of mischief you may do," observed Lubin; "better be a sober taper in a cottage, that cheers and gives light to some one, than a blazing volcano, that makes a grand show indeed, but leaves ruins and ashes behind it."
"Every one to his liking!" cried Dick, nimbly mounting the ladder, and spelling over the sentences so fast that his hearers could hardly follow him. Doubtless he meant to show off his talent, but, in his eagerness to be admired, he forgot—who can wonder that he did so?—the right spelling of one little word. Down he fell crack on the floor, the moment that he put his foot on the poney!
Up jumped Dick in a second, not hurt indeed, but a good deal mortified, especially as Lubin laughed, and Matty began to titter.
"Here we go up, up, up,
Here we go down, down, down, oh!
That is clever Dick's way
Of winning the silver crown, oh!"
cried Lubin, his fat sides shaking with mirth.