"There's a sickening author called Virgil,
Don't I wish I were chanting his dirge—ill!
As a door-nail he's dead
Yet his works live instead,
And to me they're a regular scourge—ill!"
So sang Netta, banging down her copy of Æneid I and II with a force that almost dissevered its cover and made the desk ring.
"I call it absolute sickening nonsense," she continued energetically. "Why in the name of all common sense should we girls in this modern twentieth century be expected to bother our precious heads over antiquated old rubbish that would be far better consigned to decent burial? What's the use of it, I want to know?"
"'An admirable training for the intellect', my dear! to quote Thistles," said Annie Edwards. "According to her theory you ought to feel your mind sprouting at every fresh page, and sending out shoots of wisdom."
"Sprouting, indeed! Just the other way!" grunted Netta. "Latin has a paralysing effect upon my brain. Instead of sharpening me it deadens my faculties. When I've been trying to construe a page of Virgil, my intellect feels a pulp."
"Then the obvious moral is, don't try!" yawned Millicent Cooper.
"I don't."
"No more you do, you old slacker!"
"Why should one try when one can scrape through without?"
"Not an easy thing if Thistles puts you on a difficult bit! Have you made any sense out of this part? It's uncommonly stiff."