Studying For The Contest.
Oh dear! If ever I try to learn another piece I hope to be swallowed by a whale ten times the size of the one that lunched on Jonah. Here I’ve been three weeks trying to get “The Flight of the Hottentots” by heart, and to-morrow night I am to recite at the contest; but I’m bound that that squint-eyed Caddy Screech shall not out-do me this time. Well, here it goes again: [Reads from the book without gesture.]
The swarthy forms steal one by one
Like shadows past the guard;
Now soft they creep, now leap, now run,
From tyrants base and hard;
But hark! what sound is that which comes
Across the sandy plain?
The sentry’s cry, the roll of drums!