Even Thomas Finch allowed his stolid face a gleam of intelligent sympathy, which, however, he immediately suppressed, for he remembered that the next turn was his, and that he must be getting himself into the appearance of dogged desperation which he considered suitable to a reading exercise.
"Now, Thomas," said the minister's wife, sweetly, and Thomas plunged heavily.
"They fought like brave men, long--" "Oh, Thomas, I think we will try that man's verse again, with the cries of battle in it, you know.

I am sure you can do that well." It was all the same to Thomas.

There were no words he could not spell, and he saw no reason why he should not do that verse as well as any other.

So, with an extra knitting of his eyebrows, he set forth doggedly.
"An-hour-passed-on-the-Turk-awoke-that-bright-dream-was-his-last." Thomas's voice fell with the unvarying regularity of the beat of a trip-hammer.
"He-woke-to-hear-his-sentries-shriek-to-arms-they-come-the-Greek the-Greek-he-woke--" "But, Thomas, wait a minute.

You see you must speak these words, 'To arms! They come!' differently from the others.