ant ain't a pen,
but a clothes-pin and a split nail! That'll about jibe with your dilikit
gait."

The master at once stepped to the window and, unobserved, took a
quick survey of the interior. Following some ingenious idea of his own
regarding fitness, the beautiful Filgee had induced Uncle Ben to seat
himself on the floor before one of the smallest desks, presumably
his brother's, in an attitude which, while it certainly gave him
considerable elbow-room for those contortions common to immature
penmanship, offered his youthful instructor a superior eminence, from
which he hovered, occasionally swooping down upon his grown-up pupil
like a mischievous but graceful jay. But Mr. Ford's most distinct
impression was that, far from resenting the derogatory position and the
abuse that accompanied it, Uncle Ben not only beamed upon his persecutor
with unquenchable good humor, but with undisguised admiration, and
showed not the slightest inclination to accept his proposed resignation.

"Go slow, Roop," he said cheerfully. "You was onct a boy yourself.
Nat'rally I kalkilate to stand all the damages. You've got ter waste
some powder over a blast like this yer, way down to the bed rock. Next
time I'll bring my own pens."

"Do. Some from the Dobell school you uster go to," suggested the darkly
ironical Rupert. "They was iron-clad injin-rubber, warn't they?"

"Never you mind wot they were," said Uncle Ben good-humoredly. "Look at
that string of 'C's' in that line. There's nothing mean about THEM."

He put his pen between his teeth, raised himself slowly on his legs, and
shading his eyes with his hand from the severe perspective of six feet,
gazed admiringly down upon his work. Rupert, with his hands in
his pockets and his back to the window, cynically assisted at the
inspection.

"Wot's that sick worm at the bottom of the page?" he asked.

"Wot might you think it wos?" said Uncle Ben beamingly.

"Looks like one o' them snake roots you dig up with a little mud stuck
to it," returned Rupert critically.

"That's my name."

They both stood looking at it with their heads very much on one side.
"It ain't so bad as the rest you've done. It MIGHT be your name. That
ez, it don't look like anythin' else," suggested Rupert, struck with a
new idea that it was perhaps more professional occasionally to encourage
his pupil. "You might get on in course o' time. But what are you doin'
all this for?" he asked suddenly.

"Doin' what?"

"