“H’m!” said Mr Dyce, “it depends on the way you look at it, Bell.”
“She does not know a word of her Catechism, nor the name of Robert Bruce, and says she hates counting.”
“Hates counting!” repeated Mr Dyce, wonderfully cheering up, “that’s hopeful; it reminds me of myself. Forbye its gey like brother William. His way of counting was ‘£1.10. in my pocket, £2 that I’m owing some one, and 10s. I get to-morrow—that’s £5 I have; what will I buy you now?’ The worst of arithmetic is that it leaves nothing to the imagination. Two and two’s four and you’re done with it; there’s no scope for either fun or fancy as there might be if the two and two went courting in the dark and swapped their partners by an accident.”
“I wish you would go in and speak to her,” said Bell, distressed still, “and tell her what a lot she has to learn.”
“What, me!” cried Uncle Dan—“excuse my grammar,” and he laughed. “It’s an imprudent kind of mission for a man with all his knowledge in little patches. I have a lot to learn, myself, Bell; it takes me all my time to keep the folk I meet from finding out the fact.”
But he went in humming, Bell behind him, and found the child still practising Man’s Chief End, so engrossed in the exercise she never heard him enter. He crept behind her, and put his hands over her eyes.
“Guess who,” said he, in a shrill falsetto.
“It’s Robert Bruce,” said Bud, without moving.
“No,—cold—cold!—guess again,” said her uncle, growling like Giant Blunderbore.
“I’ll mention no names,” said she, “but it’s mighty like Uncle Dan.”