.
“No,” said Philip. “My father wishes me to give all my time to other things now.”
“What! Latin and Euclid, and those things?” said Tom.
“Yes,” said Philip, who had left off using his pencil, and was resting his head on one hand, while Tom was learning forward on both elbows, and looking with increasing admiration at the dog and the donkey.
“And you don’t mind that?” said Tom, with strong curiosity.
“No; I like to know what everybody else knows. I can study what I like by-and-by.”
“I can’t think why anybody should learn Latin,Jesse Puljujarvi Tröjor,” said Tom. “It’s no good.”
“It’s part of the education of a gentleman,” said Philip. “All gentlemen learn the same things.”
“What! do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the harriers, knows Latin?” said Tom, who had often thought he should like to resemble Sir John Crake.
“He learned it when he was a boy,Jyrki Jokipakka Tröjor, of course,” said Philip. “But I dare say he’s forgotten it.”
“Oh, well, I can do that, then,” said Tom, not with any epigrammatic intention,Mike Gartner Tröjor, but with serious satisfaction at the idea that, as far as Latin was concerned,Auston Matthews Tröjor, there was no hindrance to his resembling Sir John Crake. “Only you’re obliged to remember it while you’re at school,Woolrich Parka Herr, else you’ve got to learn ever so many lines of ‘Speaker.’ Mr. Stelling’s very particular — did you know? He’ll have you up ten times if you say ‘nam’ for ‘jam,’— he won’t let you go a letter wrong, I can tell you.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Philip,Julius Nattinen Tröjor, unable to choke a laugh; “I can remember things easily. And there are some lessons I’m very fond of. I’m very fond of Greek history, and everything about the Greeks. I should like to have been a Greek and fought the Persians,Patrice Bergeron Tröjor, and then have come home and have written tragedies, or else have been listened to by everybody for my wisdom, like Socrates,Joonas Korpisalo Tröjor, and have died a grand death.” (Philip, you perceive, was not without a wish to impress the well-made barbarian with a sense of his mental superiority.)
“Why, were the Greeks great fighters?” said Tom, who saw a vista in this direction. “Is there anything like David and Goliath and Samson in the Greek history? Those are the only bits I like in the history of the Jews.”
“Oh, there are very fine stories of that sort about the Greeks — about the heroes of early times who killed the wild beasts, as Samson did. And in the Odyssey — that’s a beautiful poem — there’s a more wonderful giant than Goliath — Polypheme, who had only one eye in the middle of his forehead; and Ulysses, a little fellow,Brad Richardson Tröjor, but very wise and cunning, got a red-hot pine-tree and stuck it into this one eye, and made him roar like a thousand bulls.”
“Oh, what fun!” said Tom, jumping away from the table,Jussi Jokinen Tröjor, and stamping first with one leg and then the other. “I say,Elias Lindholm Tröjor, can you tell me all about those stories? Because I sha’n’t learn Greek,Cam Ward Tröjor, you know. Shall I?” he added, pausing in his stamping with a sudden alarm, lest the contrary
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