“A beating keeps you true, you damned flea-pizzle!” bellowed Script Master. “Keeps you true to the truth of MY lines which are written MY way and not to be bent by any frog-faced Player!”
Dancing Bear belched. She lay down and covered her head with her paws. The children looked at the ground.
Script Master stood and straightened his clothes, as if adjusting his dignity. “My lines,” he said, “are the workmanship of my genius. Do not confuse them with the common sort — the sailor’s drunken tale or the nurse’s fireside story or the old soldier’s boasts of battle. My lines are close kin to the secrets of the Learned Men, for words are made solid when drawn with ink. I have my own iron box for keeping them.”
Bear Boy’s thought: —Fiddle-faddle on paper. Leave that box open and we will kindle a fire.
Dancing Bear peeked at her boy. —The man’s genius is not as keen as he judges it, but he’s not wrong. You must learn from him how to hear what these solid words say.
Bear Boy: —Learn to read? Like some stumbling, weak-eyed monk?