“So should I be, sir. I don’t draw all the time,” said Chester, with a smile.
“I was going to ask if you wouldn’t give me lessons in drawing and sketching.”
“I should be afraid to, sir,” laughed Chester. “You might prove a dangerous rival.”
“You needn’t be afraid. I can play as well as I can sing.”
“I suppose you sing well, sir,” said Chester, roguishly.
“You can judge. When I was a young man I thought I would practice singing a little in my room one night. The next morning my landlady said, in a tone of sympathy, ‘I heard you groaning last night, Mr. Perkins. Did you have the toothache?’”
Chester burst into a hearty laugh.
“If that is the case,” he said, “I won’t be afraid of you as a rival in drawing.”
Mr. Perkins set himself to finishing his letter, and in twenty minutes it was done.
“Now, I am ready,” he said.