Miss Eleanor’s cheeks were red with vexation. Her arm ached, and the children were getting restless. She did not know what to do. “Oh, dear! _Who_ would have thought it was so hard?” she exclaimed pathetically. And then she noticed the Imp, who was fairly holding his lips in his effort to keep silence. For he had solemnly promised his mother not to put himself forward, nor suggest anything, nor offer to do a single thing till he was asked, on pain of never coming again. “What is it, Perry?” she asked. “_I_ can—_I_ can play a drum, Miss Eleanor!” he burst out. She looked doubtful: the Imp was given to thinking that he could do most things. “This isn’t a play drum, you know, dear; it’s a real one,” she said. “But I can play a real one. Truly I can! Mr. Archer taught me—he was a truly drummer-boy in the war; he showed me how. He said I could hit it up like a good ’un!” the Imp exploded again. Miss Eleanor dimly remembered that among the Imp’s amazing list of acquaintances, a one-legged Grand Army man, who kept a newspaper-stall, had been mentioned, and decided that it could do no harm to let him try. “Well, put it on,” she said, and the Imp proudly assumed the drum, grasped the sticks loosely between his fingers, wagged his head knowingly from side to side, and began. Brrrm! Brrrm! Brrrm! brrrm! brrrm! The straggling line straightened, the children began to grin, and little Pierre, at the head of the line, stamped his foot and started off. Miss Eleanor’s forehead smoothed, and she smiled encouragingly at the Imp. “That’s it, that’s it!” she cried delightedly. “How easy it looks!” But the Imp stopped suddenly, and the moving line stopped with him. “Wait! I forgot!” he said peremptorily. “You mustn’t start till I do this.” And with a few preliminary taps he gave the long roll that sends a pleasant little thrill to the listener’s heart. Brrrm! Brrrm! Brrrrr—_um_ dum! The children jumped with delight, and the line started off, the Imp drumming for dear life around the inside of the big square, and Miss Eleanor keeping the hasty ones back and hurrying the stragglers, trying to make big Hans feel the rhythm, and suppressing Pierre’s happy little skips. After a half-hour of this they begged to try the halls and stairs, and the Imp stood proudly on the landings, keeping always at about the middle of the line, stamping his right foot in time with his sticks, his eyes shining with joy, his little body straight as a dart. Miss Eleanor was delighted. The boys responded so well to her little talk on protecting the girls and waiting till they were placed before taking their own stand in the line, the girls stood so straight, the little ones entered so well into the spirit of the thing, that she felt that afternoon to have been one of the best they had had, and confided as much to the Imp on their journey home.