“I'm going to try,” said Percy, gleefully. “I know lots of ways I can do to try, anyway.”
“See here, now,” said Jasper, turning back, “you let her alone! Do you hear?” he added, and there must have been something in his eye to command attention, for Percy instantly signified his intention not to tease this young music student in the least.
“Come on then, old fellow,” and Jasper swung his cap on his head, “Thomas will be like forty bears if we keep him waiting much longer.”
And Polly kept at it steadily day after day; getting through with the lessons in the schoolroom as quickly as possible to rush to her music, until presently the little Frenchman waxed enthusiastic to that degree that, as day after day progressed and swelled into weeks, and each lesson came to an end, he would skip away on the tips of his toes, his nose in the air, and the waxed ends of his moustache, fairly trembling with delight, “Ah, such patience as Mademoiselle Pep-paire has! I know no other such little Americane!”
“I think,” said Jasper one evening after dinner, when all the children were assembled as usual in their favorite place on the big rug in front of the fire in the library, Prince in the middle of the group, his head on his paws, watching everything in infinite satisfaction, “that Polly's getting on in music as I never saw anyone do; and that's a fact!”
“I mean to begin,” said Van, ambitiously, sitting up straight and staring at the glowing coals. “I guess I will to-morrow,” which announcement was received with a perfect shout—Van's taste being anything rather than of a musical nature.
“If you do,” said Jappy, when the merriment had a little subsided, “I shall go out of the house at every lesson; there won't anyone stay in it, Van.”
“I can bang all I want to, then,” said Van, noways disturbed by the reflection, and pulling one of Prince's long ears, “you think you're so big, Jappy, just because you're thirteen.”
“He's only three ahead of me, Van,” bristled Percy, who never could forgive Jappy for being his uncle, much less the still greater sin of having been born three years earlier than himself.
“Three's just as bad as four,” said Van.