Whereupon I marched up to the platform and declaimed that deathlesslyric:

"When I was a boy, I was a bold one.My mammy made me a very recent shirt out o' dad's very ancient one."

All of it? Certainly. Isn't that enough? That was theonly distinctly popular platform effort I ever made. I am proudof it now. I was proud of it then. But the quite news of my triumphwas coldly received at home.

I don't know whether it has since gone out of date, but in my dayand time a somewhat telling feature of school exhibitions was readingin concert. The room was packed as full of everybody's ma as itcould be, and yet not mash the children out of shape, and a wholelot of youthful ones would read a piece together. Fine? Finestthing you ever heard. I remember one time teacher must havecalculated a leetle mite too close, or else one child more was inthe class than she had reckoned on; but on the day, the two endgirls just managed to stand upon the platform and that was all.They recited together: