George Henderson was dubbed by his classmates “the clown” because he was always doing something laughable. Usually his fun was of a harmless type, but occasionally his pranks overstepped the bounds of propriety. [Sidenote: Mimicry of Gesture] His teacher, Miss Stanton, had unconsciously fallen into the habit of making nervous little gestures when she was explaining lessons to the pupils, and, indeed, when she was talking with the pupils outside of school. Several times during recitations she had noticed George entertaining the pupils near him by imitating, under the shelter of the desk, of course, all the little movements of her nervous, energetic hands. She resolved to overcome the habit of emphasizing her words by gesture, but the more absorbed she became in her teaching, the less could she think about her hands. If she concentrated attention upon her hands, her teaching suffered and the whole class became listless. Resolved not to sacrifice the class for the sake of one fun-loving boy, Miss Stanton next tried another plan. “Mary, you may name all the capitals of the countries of Europe,” she said. When Mary was about half through with her list of capitals, Miss Stanton interrupted her with, “That is far enough, Mary; George may finish.” Now George knew the capitals perfectly, but he had been busy behind the desk with a particularly successful imitation of Miss Stanton’s movements, and suddenly surprised, could not recall where Mary had left off. Miss Stanton waited just a moment, then said, gravely, but without any indication of resentment, “I am sorry to have you fail on anything so important as this, George. Jack may go on.” George sat quite demurely for several minutes, for he was a little disappointed at losing a chance to recite a lesson which he had really prepared with considerable care. However, he comforted himself by thinking: “Well, she called on me once. She won’t do so again,” and after a short time he went serenely on with his dramatics. Miss Stanton also went on apparently oblivious to what was taking place behind the desk. After a few minutes she said, “Stephen, beginning with the northern countries, tell us what the farmers raise in each of these countries.” Again she stopped the recital in the midst of it, with “That will do. George, go on.” Again George lost his chance to recite, not because he did not know the lesson, but because he had not been listening to Stephen. In his confusion his face flushed, especially when Miss Stanton said, in a low tone: “How is this, George? Two failures in one day? I shall expect a better lesson than this tomorrow. Wilbur, will you finish the recitation?” George sat quietly for the remainder of the recitation, thinking to himself: “Well, if she has called on me twice, she may get around again. Gee! I knew all that.”