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One day a somewhat pedantic visitor told Billy that he would never be a great man if he did not try to understand the book in question to thoroughly digest it. "You hear what the gentleman says, Billy, you dirty little gurnet," said David Bright on that occasion, "you've got to di-gest it, my lad, to di-gest it." "Yes, father," said Billy, with a finger in his mouth and his eyes on the visitor.
"Good morning, young sir, and remember now, if you should ever feel like being a gentleman it's quite easy all as you've got to do is to read the instructions in that theer priceless wollum mark 'em learn 'em, and inwardly di-gest 'em, and you'll be a gentleman afore you know it."
"I'll digest it," said he, slapping his thigh one day when he was left alone in the house. "We'll all di-gest it together!" He jumped up, took the lid off a pot of pea-soup that was boiling on the fire, and dropped the hated book into it. "What's this i' the soup, Nell?" said David that day at dinner, as he fished a mass of curious substance out of the pot.
I never was good at letters myself, an' I'll be bound to say that Billy and I will di-gest the book better this way than the right way." Thus was the finishing touch put to Billy Bright's education at that time, and we have described the incident in order that the reader may fully understand the condition of the boy's mind as he stood gazing round the library of the West End mansion.
"All right, father," he said, "I put 'im in. We're a-goin' to di-gest it, you know." "Dirty boy!" exclaimed his mother, flinging the remains of the boiled book under the grate. "You've ruined the soup." "Never a bit, Nell," said the skipper, who was in no wise particular as to his food, "clean paper an' print can't do no damage to the soup.
"Why, sonny," returned David, knitting his brows very hard, for the question was somewhat of a puzzler, "he means that you've got to stow away in your brain the knowledge that's in the book, an' work away at it di-gest it, d'ee see same as you stow grub into yer stummick an' digest that." Billy pondered this a long time till a happy thought occurred to him.
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