"Fergus is thinking about what he will put into his issue of the Star."
"They're all my issues, so far's I can see," growled Fergus.
"But now, Fergus," persisted Nort, "if you were editing a column in the newspaper what would you put in it?"
Fergus began to liven up a little.
"Tell us, Fergus," said Anthy.
Fergus took his pipe out of his mouth and rubbed the bowl of it along his cheek, screwing up his face as though he were thinking hard. We all watched him. No one could ever tell quite where Fergus would break out.
"What is most interesting to you?" prompted Nort.
"That's easy," said Fergus, and turning in his chair he reached across to the shelf and produced his battered volume of "Tom Sawyer." This he opened gravely and began to read the passage in which Tom beguiles the other boys in the village to do his white-washing for him:
"Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life seemed to him hollow and existence but a burden."
Fergus read it with a deliciously humorous Scotch twist in the words, a twist impossible to represent in print. Occasionally he would pause and bark two or three times, his excuse for laughter. When he had reached the end of the passage, Nort said: