"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