Maggie. I’ll help you now, Tom. I’ve come to the school to stay ever so long. I’ve brought my box and my pinafores—haven’t I, father?
Tom. You help me, you silly little thing! I should like to see you doing one of my lessons. Why, I learn Latin, too. Girls never learn such things. They’re too silly.
M. I know what Latin is very well. Latin’s a language. There are Latin words in the dictionary. There’s bonus, a gift.
T. Now you’re just wrong there, Miss Maggie. You think you’re very wise. But “bonus” means “good,” as it happens—bonus, bona, bonum.
M. Well, that’s no reason why it shouldn’t mean “gift.” It may mean several things—almost every word does. There’s “lawn”—it means the grass-plot as well as the stuff pocket-handkerchiefs are made of.
T. Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie.
M. Oh, what books! How I should like to have as many books as that!
T. Why, you couldn’t read one of ’em. They’re all Latin.
M. No, they aren’t. I can read the back of this, “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”
T. Well, what does that mean? You don’t know.