"Pocket Marvel, that little master," commented Mr. Hannaford, as the wagonette turned out of sight.
Stingo made three husky attempts at speech and at length whispered: "Thought he was the young lordship when I first saw 'em."
Mr. Hannaford beamed with delight and extended his hand. "Why, that's just what I thought!" he declared; "bless my eighteen stun proper if it wasn't. Steady down, boy, steady down and join us."
But Stingo's handshake was limp, and he shook his head slowly.
Then there were the lessons with Miss Purdie. Very considerably less satisfactory, these, than the tearing excitements that the pony provided, yet having plenty of fun for Percival's eager young mind, and increasing along a new path the intimacy between the two boys. Rollo was the more advanced; but his grounding! "Your grounding," as Miss Purdie would cry, "is shoc-_king_! Grounding is _everything_! _Look_ at this sum! _What_ is seven times twelve, sir? ... then _why_ have you put down a six? How _dare_ you laugh, Percival? You are _worse_! Rollo, it's _no_ good! You must begin at the _beginning_. Grounding is _everything_!"
Terribly frightening, Miss Purdie, when swept by her little storms. Rather like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances from behind her spectacles. "_Don't_ put your tongue out when you write, Percival! What would you think of me, if I moved my tongue from corner to corner every time I write, like that? _Don't_ laugh at me, sir!"
"Well, it comes out by itself," Percival expostulates, "and I don't even know that it is out, you know; so I should like to know what you think of that?"
"I don't think any thing _about_ it," says Miss Purdie, with a stamp of her little foot. "That _stu_-pid question of yours! _How_ often have I told you not to use it?"
Very like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances, with her nimble little hops to and fro, and with her perky little cockings of the head on this side and the other as she encourages an answer.
"Now the grammar lesson and I hope you've both prepared it. Gender of nouns. Masculine, Govern-_or_. Feminine?"
"Govern-_ess_," venture the boys, a trifle apprehensively.
"Good boys! Masculine, Sorcer-er. Feminine?"