The Eternal Boy : Being the Story of the Prodigious Hickey

(...) "'He forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Eu- rope, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French'"....
Shrimp Davis, on the platform, piped forth the familiar periods of Phillips's oration on Toussaint L'Ouverture, while the Third Form in declamation, dis- posed to sleep, stirred fitfully on one another's shoulders, resenting the adolescent squeak that rendered perfect rest impossible. Pa Dater followed from the last bench, marking the position of the heels, the adjustment of the gesture to the phrase, and the rise and fall of the voice with patient enthusiasm, undis- mayed by the memory of the thousand Toussaints who had passed, or the cer- tainty of the thousands who were to come.... (...)