Frank blushed to his eyes, but he obeyed; and he hardly knew how it was,
that, before the doctor's rapid questioning was over, his answers had
included the whole range of his schooling and acquirements.

"Isn't dey doin' fine!" was the proud thought in the mind of Dick Lee.
"But jes' wait till he gits hol' ob Cap'n Dab!"

Dick's confidence in his friend was at least ten times greater than
Dabney's in himself. The very air of the room he was in seemed, to the
latter, to grow oppressively heavy with learning, and he dreaded his own
turn more than ever. While he was waiting for it to come, however, some
casual reference to Long Island by the doctor, and a question as to the
precise character of its southern coast, rapidly expanded into a wider
range of geography, upon the heels of which history trod a little
carelessly, and other subjects came tumbling in, until Dabney discovered
that he was computing, at the doctor's request, sundry arithmetical
results, which might with greater propriety have been reserved for his
"examination." That, too, was the way poor Dick Lee came to make so bad
a breakdown. His shining face would have told, even to eyes less
practised than those of Dr. Brandegee, exactly the answer, as to kind
and readiness, which he would have made to every question put to his
white friends. That is, unless he had been directly called upon to
"answer out aloud." There is no telling what he would have done in such
a case as that.

The doctor found out, for he quietly shifted his last question over
Dab's left shoulder, and let it fall upon Dick in such a way as not to
scare him.

"You's got me, dis time! Dat's de berry place whar we stopped at de end