“Dance! Aw jimmery! I was born dancin’; I shall die dancin’. No, but I’ll teach you if you mind to try. I’ll larn ’e the ‘Wildfire Gallop’--a butivul thing ’tis sure ’nough as us dances in summer-time under a full mune.” So the Jacky-Toad hung up his lamp and Mabel got out of bed and very soon mastered the “Wildfire Gallop”--the great classical dance of Jacky-Toads all the world over. “Gormed if I ever seed a pixie do it better!” said her tutor. “There are no such things as pixies,” replied Mabel promptly. “No pixies! You ban’t so clever as I thought ’e, ’pears to me. No pixies! You’ll say theer ban’t no spriggans, nor elves, nor brownies, nor goblins, nor tankeraboguses, nor efts, nor Jacky-Twoads next!” “My father has told me there are no pixies--therefore there are none,” answered Mabel. “You can hardly suppose that I should take your word before his?” “Dammy! I’ve _seed_ ’em scores an’ scores o’ times,” began the Jacky-Toad; but Mabel never argued with him, and always punished a bad word instantly. Whenever he swore she put him back into his marmalade-jar. This she now did, so he learned no more that night. On the following evening he apologised as soon as he was let out, and his mistress accepted the expression of regret without comment. “I’ve been thinking that a little English poetry might enlarge your mind,” she said. “Much of it is very simple and beautiful, and I know a great deal by heart.” “I’ll do my best, I promise ’e, but I ban’t hopeful.” “Well, Shakespeare would be too difficult, of course; but I happen to know a very lovely poem called ‘Excelsior,’ by Longfellow. That you might understand; and if you only learned a verse or two it would be something.” She recited the poem to him, and the Jacky-Toad said it was fine talk, and managed to commit one verse to memory, though not without much difficulty. Then Mabel repeated several of the “Ancient and Modern Hymns,” and a rhymed alphabet, and some of Lear’s Nonsense Verses. The last pleased her pupil much, but she refused to permit him to learn any of them, explaining that knowledge of this description, though an elegant accomplishment, as in her case, would not add lasting lustre to the Jacky-Toad’s reputation. Then some chance utterance reminded him of home, and he sighed and trimmed his lamp, and murmured a vague wish about moonlight and quaking-bogs. “I believe sometimes you almost want to go back,” said Mabel coldly. “Well, you do keep such a darnation tight hand ’pon me. Home’s home, when all’s said, if ’tis awnly a li’l’ cranny in a bog. Theer ban’t no comfort here, nor yet comp’ny, savin’ your presence.” “You want to go back to those other wretched Jacky-Toads?” “Ess fay, an’ show ’em all I’ve larned.” “You’ve learnt absolutely nothing yet; and I’m not going to let you go back till you know at least the Kings of Israel and the multiplication table up to twelve times twelve, so you needn’t think it.”