"Then I will be the best friend to you that man ever had. There's my hand on it."
"I take it, but I ask leave to change the parties in the contract. I don't want a friend—I don't deserve one. You'll be a friend to my little girl instead; and if ever I ask you to help me in aught for her welfare and happiness—"
"I will help, heart and soul. Slight, indeed, any service to her or to you compared with such service to me. Free this wretched tongue from its stammer, and thought and zeal will not stammer, whenever you say, 'Keep your promise.' I am so glad your little girl is still with you!"
Waife looked surprised—"Is still with me—why not?"
The scholar bit his tongue. That was not the moment to confess; it might destroy all Waife's confidence in him. He would do so later.
"When shall I begin my lesson?"
"Now, if you like. But have you a book in your pocket?"
"I always have."
"Not Greek, I hope, Sir."
"No, a volume of Barrow's Sermons. Lord Chatham recommended those sermons to his great son as a study for eloquence."
"Good! Will you lend me that volume, Sir, and now for it; listen to me: one sentence at a time—draw your breath when I do."
The three magpies pricked up their ears again, and, as they listened, marvelled much.
CHAPTER III.
At the end of the very first lesson George Morley saw, that all the elocution-masters to whose skill he had been consigned were blunderers in comparison to the basket-maker.
Waife did not puzzle him with scientific theories. All that the great comedian required of him was to observe and to imitate. Observation, imitation, lo! the ground-work of all art! the primal element of all genius! Not there, indeed, to halt, but there ever to commence. What remains to carry on the
