“Hattie.”
He was a tall, thin man, and he had a point of beard on his chin that made him look taller. He wore a blue cape, which he tossed on a chair. And he carried a violin. His name was Mr. Cato. He drew five lines on the blackboard, and made eight dots that looked as though they were going upstairs on the lines. Then he rapped on his violin with his bow, and the class sat up straight.
“This,” said Mr. Cato, “is A,” and he pointed to a dot. Then he looked at Emmy Lou. Unfortunately Emmy Lou sat at a front desk.
“Now, what is it?” said Mr. Cato.
“A,” said Emmy Lou, obediently. She wondered. But she had met A in so many guises of print and script that she accepted any statement concerning A. And now a dot was A.
“And this,” said Mr. Cato, “is B, and this is C, and this D, and E, F, G, which brings us naturally to A again,” and Mr. Cato with his bow went up the stairway punctuated with dots.
Emmy Lou wondered why G brought one naturally to A again.
But Mr. Cato was tapping up the dotted stairway with his bow. “Now what are they?” asked Mr. Cato.
“Dots,” said Emmy Lou, forgetting.
Mr. Cato got red in the face and rapped angrily.