Not with an outburst of horror; he had not even been
informed that he was irreverent. Nimble Dick delighted in making each
teacher tell him this; he had merely been replied to in the calmest of
argumentative tones, and called upon to account for the facts in his own
statements, and had been unable to do so. The crowd broke into a
derisive laugh, and were noisy, it is true, and brought troubled frowns
to the face of their superintendent, and made the flush on Alfred Ried's
face deepen; yet if both these anxious watchers had known it, it was
worthy of note that the laugh had been at the expense of one of their
number, and not at their teacher.
"Well, go on," interposed the youngest and quietest of the group. "Tell
us some more about your old fellow with his serpents. Did they stay
swallowed, and what did it all amount to, anyhow?"
Thus challenged, Mrs. Roberts gave her whole heart to the business of
giving, in as dramatic a manner as she could, the closing scenes in the
act performed in Egypt so long ago, carefully avoiding any reference to
time, and mentioning no names, using only modern terms, and an
exceedingly simple conversational form of language. She was, however,
presently interrupted with a question:--
"When did all this happen? And why don't somebody do something like it
nowadays?"
Ignoring the first question, Mrs.
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