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Book, page 131 / 224 asking embarrassing, and struggled with it with flushing cheeks. Gracie came to his aid:-- "I don't know whether I'll take lessons or not. Who wants to expose one's ignorance? Will you teach? Must we each give a specimen of our present attainments?" Instantly Ried divined the reason for the question. "No," he said, eagerly; "oh, no; I should begin with those horrors of your childhood, pothooks or something of that sort; lines and curves, you know. There are not many of them after all in our letters, and when once a person has conquered them it is easy to put them together." There was more talk, easy and social. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, the doctor, and Gracie seemed equally interested in the project, and questioned young Ried, until he assured them that he began to feel like a veritable professor. Apparently the boys were forgotten. This very fact put them at their ease, and they listened, interested and amused over the thought that these ladies and gentlemen wanted to go to school! At first I do not think it occurred to one of them that he was included in the proposal to form an writing-class. How was it done? I am not sure that any one of the eager group of workers could have told you afterward, so excited did they become over this first scheme. Nobody could remember just what words were said, nor who said them, nor whether the boys all looked equally startled when paper and pen were put into each hand. They remembered that some shook their heads emphatically, and that Nimble Dick spoke plainly: "No you don't! I can't write any more than a duck can, and I never expect to." Mrs. Roberts knew that Dirk Colson's dark face turned a fierce red, and he snapped the offered pen half-way across the table with his indignant thumb and finger. But of these words and acts nobody apparently took any notice. The writing began, and the first marks given as copies were so simple, looked so easy to do, and the attempts of the ladies and gentlemen fell so far short of what the teacher desired, and were so unmercifully criticised by him, and the criticisms were so merrily received by the writers, that at last the whole thing took the form of a joke to Nimble Dick's mind, and he became possessed with a burning
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