Part 21 (2/2)

Philip felt some bitter complacency in the promising stupidity of this well-made, active-looking boy; but made polite by his own extreme sensitiveness, as well as by his desire to conciliate, he checked his inclination to laugh, and said quietly,--

”I've done with the grammar; I don't learn that any more.”

”Then you won't have the same lessons as I shall?” said Tom, with a sense of disappointment.

”No; but I dare say I can help you. I shall be very glad to help you if I can.”

Tom did not say ”Thank you,” for he was quite absorbed in the thought that Wakem's son did not seem so spiteful a fellow as might have been expected.

”I say,” he said presently, ”do you love your father?”

”Yes,” said Philip, coloring deeply; ”don't you love yours?”

”Oh yes--I only wanted to know,” said Tom, rather ashamed of himself, now he saw Philip coloring and looking uncomfortable. He found much difficulty in adjusting his att.i.tude of mind toward the son of Lawyer Wakem, and it had occurred to him that if Philip disliked his father, that fact might go some way toward clearing up his perplexity.

”Shall you learn drawing now?” he said, by way of changing the subject.

”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,” 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, 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, but with serious satisfaction at the idea that, as far as Latin was concerned, there was no hindrance to his resembling Sir John Crake. ”Only you're obliged to remember it while you're at school, 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, 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, and then have come home and have written tragedies, or else have been listened to by everybody for my wisdom, like Socrates, 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, 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.”

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