“Excellent wench!
Perdition catch my soul but I do——”
wish there were more teachers like you.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] A scientific friend explains that the Manual treats only of vegetable destroyers: the worble fly is the pest of oxen.
[40] “Shut off the runnels now, lads; the meadows have drunk enough.”
CHAPTER XXVI
COMPOSITION
“An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.”
King John.
In the dark ages before (about) 1895 one of the subjects allotted to Standard V. was composition, and this was further explained to be “writing from memory the substance of a short story read out twice.” It was a very useful exercise, and many of my friends would be more valuable witnesses in a court of justice, and better company after dinner, if they had received this training. To be able to catch the point of a story and repeat it accurately is a rare accomplishment. I remember an instance in point.
I was staying with a doctor, a school manager; and at dinner I told him the old story of H. J. Byron, Sothern, and the great-coat. He laughed, and made a mental note of it for professional use. Next day at lunch he told me that it had brought him good fruit beyond expectation.
He had called at the Hall, and finding the daughters of the house assembled in the drawing-room, after he had seen his patient, he had told them the story thus: