Part 5 (1/2)
Harry opened the book--a Greek reader--in the middle of an extract from Xenophon, and looked with some awe at the unintelligible letters.
”Can you read it? Can you understand what it means?” he asked, looking up from the book.
”So-so.”
”You must know a great deal.”
Oscar laughed.
”I wonder what Dr. Burton would say if he heard you,” he said.
”Who is he?”
”Princ.i.p.al of our Academy. He gave me a blowing up for my ignorance to-day, because I missed an irregular Greek verb. I'm not exactly a dunce, but I don't think I shall ever be a Greek professor.”
”If you speak of yourself that way, what will you think of me? I don't know a word of Latin, of Greek, or any language except my own.”
”Because you have had no chance to learn. There's one language I know more about than Latin or Greek.”
”English?”
”I mean French; I spent a year at a French boarding-school, three years since.”
”What! Have you been in France?”
”Yes; an uncle of mine--in fact, the editor--was going over, and urged father to send me. I learned considerable French, but not much else. I can speak and understand it pretty well.”
”How I wish I had had your advantages,” said Harry. ”How did you like your French schoolmates?”
”They wouldn't come near me at first. Because I was an American they thought I carried a revolver and a dirk-knife, and was dangerous.
That is their idea of American boys. When they found I was tame, and carried no deadly weapons, they ventured to speak with me, and after that we got along pretty well.”
”How soon do you expect to go to college?”
”A year from next summer. I suppose I shall be ready by that time.
You are going to stay in town, I suppose?”
”Yes, if I keep my place.”
”Oh, you'll do that. Then we can see something of each other. You must come up to my room, and see me. Come almost any evening.”
”I should like to. Do you live in Dr. Barton's family?”
”No, I hope not.”
”Why not?”
”Oh, the Doctor has a way of looking after the fellows that room in the house, and of keeping them at work all the time. That wouldn't suit me. I board at Mrs. Greyson's, at the south-east corner of the church common. Have you got anything to do this evening?”