“I aint,” said Pip.

“Who said you was?” inquired Wort.

“You!” charged Pip, turning to the governor.

“I didn’t.”

“You looked at me.”

“Silence in the audience!” shrieked Sid to the now jolly spectators.

“You’ve got your end all twisted up, Wort,” said the governor.

“O dear!” groaned the president.

The straightening out of the last difficulty was effected after a while, and Gov.  Grimes began again:  “Here are some big, black dogs in a melon-patch.”

“Bears, bears!” eagerly whispered Charlie, alarmed for the reputation of a club that could not tell the difference between dogs and bears.

“Well, bears, then,” said the governor petulantly, “and I aint going to be it any more.”

The discomfited lecturer insisted on resigning, and Charlie took the floor.  He knew his old and beloved “pammerrammer” by heart, and he began promptly where the governor left off.

“Here are some bears in a melon-patch.  There’s a picture of Westminster Abbey, and here’s a boy lifting a girl over a fence, and here’s a flag from Europe, and here’s one from some part of Asia or some other place.”

In the midst of Charlie’s glib description there was a crash.  The plank, alias the reserved seats, did not have a firm support.  Its weakness had been noticed, but not remedied.

“Who’s the one to fix the bench?” inquired Sid.

“The governor,” replied Wort.

But the governor was not one who believed in Aunt Stanshy’s motto, “Do to-day’s things to-day.”  She was trying to impress it on Charlie, but she could not be expected to stamp every mind in the club with the necessity of the injunction.

“One boy is enough for me,” she would say.

The plank had remained firm as long as it could, but several wriggling children were too much even for the patience of a plank, and—­down it went!  Little May Waters dropped at the feet of Charlie as he was busily “’splaining.”  He gallantly picked her up and tried to comfort her, and various members of the club rushed to the rescue of other ladies.  It was concluded now to adjourn the “pammerrammer.”

“Man down in the yard!” called out Wort, who was “sentinel” when he had nothing else to do.  Wort looked over the edge of the window-sill.  About all he could see was an old hat, and a very bad hat at that.

“Let’s sprinkle him!  We can say we only saw a hat,” and immediately scraping up with his foot a quantity of hay-seed, he liberally sprinkled the seedy hat.  It was like unto like.

“Now look here,” said Sid, “that was mean.  If your father wore an old hat, how would you like to have a feller sprinkle hay-seed on it?”

Sid had a good deal of the gentleman about him.

“There he comes!  There he comes!  Put!” said Wort.  A foot-step could be plainly heard on the stairs, and Wort started for the closet, again saying, “Put!”