“In the name of our common country, sir, in the name of that righteous cause in which we are jined, and in the name of the star-spangled banner, I thank you for your eloquent and categorical remarks.  You, sir, are a model of a man fresh from Natur’s mould.  A true-born child of this free hemisphere; verdant as the mountains of our land; bright and flowin’ as our mineral Licks; unspiled by fashion as air our boundless perearers.  Rough you may be; so air our Barrs.  Wild you may be; so air our Buffalers.  But, sir, you air a Child of Freedom, and your proud answer to the Tyrant is, that your bright home is in the Settin’ Sun.  And, sir, if any man denies this fact, though it be the British Lion himself, I defy him.  Let me have him here!”—­smiting the table, and causing the inkstand to skip—­“here, upon this sacred altar!  Here, upon the ancestral ashes cemented with the glorious blood poured out like water on the plains of Chickabiddy Lick.  Alone I dare that Lion, and tell him that Freedom’s hand once twisted in his mane, he rolls a corse before me, and the Eagles of the Great Republic scream, Ha, ha!”

By this time the boys were rolling about in fits of laughter; even sober Frank was red and breathless, and Jack lay back, feebly squealing, as he could laugh no more.  In a moment Ralph was as meek as a Quaker, and sat looking about him with a mildly astonished air, as if inquiring the cause of such unseemly mirth.  A knock at the door produced a lull, and in came a maid with apples.

“Time’s up; fall to and make yourselves comfortable,” was the summary way in which the club was released from its sterner duties and permitted to unbend its mighty mind for a social half-hour, chiefly devoted to whist, with an Indian war-dance as a closing ceremony.

Chapter X

The Dramatic Club

While Jack was hopping gayly about on his crutches, poor Jill was feeling the effects of her second fall, and instead of sitting up, as she hoped to do after six weeks of rest, she was ordered to lie on a board for two hours each day.  Not an easy penance, by any means, for the board was very hard, and she could do nothing while she lay there, as it did not slope enough to permit her to read without great fatigue of both eyes and hands.  So the little martyr spent her first hour of trial in sobbing, the second in singing, for just as her mother and Mrs. Minot were deciding in despair that neither she nor they could bear it, Jill suddenly broke out into a merry chorus she used to hear her father sing:—­

  “Faut jouer le mirliton,
  Faut jouer le mirlitir,
  Faut jouer le mirliter,
  Mir—­li—­ton.”

The sound of the brave little voice was very comforting to the two mothers hovering about her, and Jack said, with a look of mingled pity and admiration, as he brandished his crutch over the imaginary foes,—­

“That’s right!  Sing away, and we’ll play you are an Indian captive being tormented by your enemies, and too proud to complain.  I’ll watch the clock, and the minute time is up I’ll rush in and rescue you.”