"And, father, they are going to show up their exercises, or something that they've done, to Grand tomorrow; you'll hear them," observed Hugh.
"But poor Cray was so ill on Saturday," said the little girl, "that he couldn't do nothing but lie in bed and write his poetry."
"But they got on very well," observed Bertram philosophically. "They had up the stable-boy with a great squirt; he had to keep staring at Cray while Johnnie read aloud, and every time Cray winked he was to squirt Johnnie. Cray didn't have any dinner or any tea, and his face was so red."
"Poor fellow!"
"Yes," said the youngest boy, "and he wrote some verses about Johnnie, and said they were for him to read aloud to grandfather. But what do you think? Johnnie said he wouldn't! That doesn't sound very kind, does it?"
Johnnie's resolution, however, was not particularly remarkable; the verses, compounded during an attack of asthma, running as follows:—
AUGUSTUS JOHN CONFESSES TO LOSS OF APPETITE.
I cannot eat rice pudding now,
Jam roll, boiled beef, and such;
From Stilton cheese this heart I vow
Turns coldly as from Dutch.
For crab, a shell-fish erst loved well,
I do not care at all,
Though I myself am in the shell
And fellow-feelings call.
I mourn not over tasks unsaid—
This child is not a flat—
My purse is empty as my head,
But no—it isn't that;