“Isn't it at the lower third of the humerus, where the flexors divide?”
“You are too bad,—too stupid!” cried she, angrily. “I cannot believe that anything short of a purpose, a determination to be ignorant, could make a person so unteach-able. If we have gone over this once, we have done so fifty times. It haunts me in my sleep, from very iteration.”
“I wish it would haunt me a little when I 'm awake,” said he, sulkily.
“And when may that be, I'd like to know? Do you fancy, sir, that your present state of intelligence is a very vigilant one?”
“I know one thing. I hope there won't be the like of you on the Court of Examiners, for I would n't bear the half of what you've said to me from another.”
“Rejection will be harder to bear, Tom. To be sent back as ignorant and incapable will be far heavier as a punishment than any words of mine. What are you laughing at, sir? Is it a matter of mirth to you?”
“Look at the skull, Polly,—look at the skull.” And he pointed to where he had stuck his short, black pipe, between the grinning teeth of the skeleton.
She snatched it angrily away, and threw it out of the window, saying, “You may be ignorant, and not be able to help it. I will take care you shall not be irreverent, sir.”