[Illustation: "AND THEN HE SUDDENLY SAID, 'HALF A LEG--'"] He bowed precariously, choked, made an inarticulate sound, and then he suddenly said, "Half a leg--" "_League_," said the teacher, coolly. "Half a leg--" "_League_," said the teacher. "_League_," repeated Jimmie, wildly. "Half a league, half a league, half a league onward." He paused here and looked wretchedly at the teacher. "Half a league," he muttered--"half a league--" He seemed likely to keep continuing this phrase indefinitely, so after a time the teacher said, "Well, go on." "Half a league," responded Jimmie. The teacher had the opened book before her, and she read from it: "'All in the valley of Death Rode the--' Go on," she concluded. Jimmie said, "All in the valley of Death Rode the--the--the--" He cast a glance of supreme appeal upon the teacher, and breathlessly whispered, "Rode the what?" The young woman flushed with indignation to the roots of her hair. "Rode the six hundred," she snapped at him. The class was arustle with delight at this cruel display. They were no better than a Roman populace in Nero's time. Jimmie started off again: "Half a leg--league, half a league, half a league onward. All in the valley of death rode the six hundred. Forward--forward--forward--" "The Light Brigade," suggested the teacher, sharply. "The Light Brigade," said Jimmie. He was about to die of the ignoble pain of his position. As for Tennyson's lines, they had all gone grandly out of his mind, leaving it a whited wall. The teacher's indignation was still rampant. She looked at the miserable wretch before her with an angry stare. "You stay in after school and learn that all over again," she commanded. "And be prepared to speak it next Friday. I am astonished at you, Jimmie. Go to your seat." If she had suddenly and magically made a spirit of him and left him free to soar high above all the travail of our earthly lives she could not have overjoyed him more. He fled back to his seat without hearing the low-toned gibes of his schoolmates. He gave no thought to the terrors of the next Friday. The evils of the day had been sufficient, and to a childish mind a week is a great space of time. With the delightful inconsistency of his age he sat in blissful calm, and watched the sufferings of an unfortunate boy named Zimmerman, who was the next victim of education. Jimmie, of course, did not know that on this day there had been laid for him the foundation of a finished incapacity for public speaking which would be his until he died. VI SHAME