Читать книгу The Blue Lagoon & The Garden of God (Sequel) онлайн

112 страница из 147

“Have you ever seen your name, Paddy?” asked Dick one morning.

“Seen me which?”

“Your name?”

“Arrah, don’t be axin’ me questions,” replied the other. “How the divil could I see me name?”

“Wait and I’ll show you,” replied Dick.

He ran and fetched a piece of cane, and a minute later on the salt-white sand in face of orthography and the sun appeared these portentous letters:

B U T T E N

“Faith, an’ it’s a cliver boy y’are,” said Mr Button admiringly, as he leaned luxuriously against a cocoa-nut tree, and contemplated Dick’s handiwork. “And that’s me name, is it? What’s the letters in it?”

Dick enumerated them.

“I’ll teach you to do it, too,” he said. “I’ll teach you to write your name, Paddy—would you like to write your name, Paddy?”

“No,” replied the other, who only wanted to be let smoke his pipe in peace; “me name’s no use to me.”

But Dick, with the terrible gadfly tirelessness of childhood, was not to be put off, and the unfortunate Mr Button had to go to school despite himself. In a few days he could achieve the act of drawing upon the sand characters somewhat like the above, but not without prompting, Dick and Emmeline on each side of him, breathless for fear of a mistake.