Perry frowned fiercely on Lulu Ann Nummler, and the three fingers disappeared.  On me he smiled.

“It’s a great pleasure to me to be able to recite,” he said.  “To be able to repeat great po-ems at will, is to have a treasure you can allus carry with you while your voice lasts.”  All this was to the scholars.  “There are three great arts in this world—­singin’, hand-paintin’, and last but not least, speakin’.  I try my hand at all of them except hand-paintin’, and I wish to impress on all you scholars what a joy it is to oneself and one’s friends to have mastered one of these muses.  Singin’ and speakin’ are closely allied, startin’ from the same source.  And hand-painting it allus seemed to me, is really elocution in oils; for a be-yutiful picture is a silent talker.  What suggestions it brings to us as we look upon a paintin’ of a wreath of flowers, or fruit, or a handsome lady!  This art is lastin’.  Speakin’ and singin’ is over as soon as they is done.  So I have often thought that had I only time I’d hand-paint; but bein’ a busy man I’ve had to content myself with but two of the muses.”

Perry paused a moment to rub his hands and smile.  I did not miss this opportunity to break in, for I had no intention of listening to a dissertation on art as well as to a recitation.

“Now let us have your ‘Marmion,’” I said.

He had forgotten all about “Marmion,” and came back to the knight with a start and a cough.  Then he gazed long at the floor.  The school buzz died away, and you could hear the ticking of my little clock.  Perry coughed again and I knew that he was started, so I settled down in my chair and gazed out of the window.

“‘But Doogulus round him drew his cloak,’” Perry was buttoning the two top buttons of his Prince Albert as his voice rang out. “’Folded his arms and thus he spoke.’”

Annagretta Holmes is only three years old.  They send her to school to keep her warm and out of mischief.  She sat on the very front row, right under Perry’s eye.  The poor child didn’t understand why Teacher Thomas should stare so at her, and she let out one long, unending bleat.  This gave me a chance to send Lulu Ann Nummler out of the room in charge of the infant, and I rested easier when Perry drew his Prince Albert around him once more and spoke.

A grand figure Perry would have made in Tantallion’s towers.  I forgot the school, and the village and the valley, as I sat there looking out of the window into the sky.  I am in those towers when Marmion stops to bid adieu, but in place of the proud Scottish noble, Perry Thomas stands confronting the English warrior.  What a pair they make—­the knight armed cap-a-pie, at his charger’s side, and Perry in that close-fitting, shiny coat that has seen so many great occasions in the valley.  There is a gracious bigness about the Englishman forgetting the cold respect with which he has been treated and offering a mailed hand in farewell.  But Perry