"Because it is," answered Pliny, promptly.
"Oh yes," said Tode, quickly. "Course that's the reason. Queer we didn't think of it." Then to Dora. "Let's see you snarl that thing around."
Dora quickly and skillfully obeyed.
"Do it again, and don't go so like lightning. How can a fellow tell what you're about?"
So more slowly, and again and again was the feat repeated until at last Tode seized hold of the pen as he said:
"Let me have a dab at the fellow; see if I can draw him."
"Why, you do it real well. Really and truly he does, Pliny," said the delighted Dora.
"But do you know there are two t's?" she added, turning again to her pupil. "One has a cross to it, just so. You make a straight mark with a little crook to it; then you cross it, so."
Pliny from his sofa chuckled and exclaimed over this explanation: "A straight mark with a little crook to it. Oh, ho!" But the others were absorbed, and bent eagerly over their paper, and thus the horrified Mrs. Hastings found them on her return from the parlor, the offshoot from a cellar rum hole bending his curly head close beside her daughter's!
She exclaimed in indignant astonishment: