“Quite right, too,” remarked Bob, encouragingly, as if he was familiar with all such little matters as the great dramas of Shakespeare, and was willing to share his courage with all the world.
Tom at last reluctantly consented, and striking an attitude, gazed up into the sky as if nothing less than the ghost was beckoning to him. His eyes assumed a far-away expression, and he waited a moment before he began. Then apparently every muscle in his body became rigid, and in a loud and unnatural tone of voice he commenced.
“Tew be-e-e- or not to be-e-e-e-e-”
As he spoke his right arm shot suddenly out in front of him, much after the action of a piston rod in a great locomotive, and his eyes began to roll. Bert suddenly rolled over upon the ground and hid his face in the grass, and Ben as quickly turned and gazed out upon the river as if something he had discovered there demanded his attention. Only Bob was unmoved, and without a smile upon his face, he said solemnly, “Why do you talk it off like that, Tom?”
“Isn’t that the way to do it?”
“I should hardly think so. Don’t you think Hamlet was puzzled and was somehow half talking to himself? It seems to me as if he was musing and didn’t think of any one to whom he was speaking. He was talking to himself, so to speak. Don’t you think so, Ben?”
“Yes,” replied Ben, desperately striving to control his voice, and not turning his face away from the spot he had discovered on the river.
“Well, I don’t know about it,” protested Tom. “It always seemed to me that Hamlet was a good deal of a crank, and instead of acting naturally he was more likely to do the most unnatural thing in the world.”