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scholar, who is as stupid as I am. The girl had gone, and I thought he had also, it was so still, and I was busily gabbling over a verb, and rocking to and fro in a most absurd way, when a little crow made me look up, and there was Mr. Bhaer looking and laughing quietly, while he made signs to Tina not to betray him. “ ‘So!’ he said, as I stopped and stared like a goose, ‘you peep at me, I peep at you, and that is not bad; but see, I am not pleasanting when I say, haf you a wish for German?’ “ ‘Yes; but you are too busy. I am too stupid to learn,’ I blundered out, as red as a peony. “ ‘Prut! we will make the time, and we fail not to find the sense. At efening I shall gif a little lesson with much gladness; for, look you, Mees Marsch, I haf this debt to pay,’ and he pointed to my work. ‘ “Yes,” they say to one another, these so kind ladies, “he is a stupid old fellow; he will see not what we do; he will never opserve that his sock-heels go not in holes any more, he will think his buttons grow out new when they fall, and believe that strings make theirselves.” Ah! but I haf an eye, and I see much. I haf a heart, and I feel the thanks for this. Come, a little lesson then and now, or no more good fairy works for me and mine.’ “Of course I couldn’t say anything after that, and as it really is a splendid opportunity, I made the bargain, and we began. I took four lessons, and then I stuck fast in a grammatical bog. The Professor was very patient with me, but it must have been torment to him, and now and then he’d look at me with such an expression of mild despair