The poor little crocodile who failed had to go to the foot of the class. He began to cry so hard that Dorothy felt very sorry for the poor thing and almost wished that she had not taken his place, but a great crocodile who stood beside her whispered in her ear:
“Those are only crocodile tears, you know,” and Dorothy felt better.
“Now tell me, what is the shape of the earth?” said the teacher to a small crocodile.
“Flat,” was the answer, and the teacher said, “very flat.”
This did not seem just right to Dorothy, and she was trying to think where she had heard that the earth is round. All at once it came to her mind that mamma had told her.
“The earth is round like an orange,” said Dorothy, jumping out of her place.
“It isn’t,” shouted a great fat crocodile, “the earth is flat and I’ll prove it.”
When he stood the whole school groaned, and the teacher said: “Sit down,” in a terrible voice. Somebody tried to pull the fat crocodile down in his seat, and several mud-balls were thrown at him. There was a great uproar for several minutes, and the teacher jumped up calling “order.”
“What a very unruly school,” thought Dorothy, and just then the teacher turned to her and said:
“How much are five and five?”