CHAPTER II.
JOHNNIE'S PROTEGE.
OHNNIE completed his task in two or three days, labouring at it at first very earnestly, then growing tired, getting careless, and finally finishing it up in a hurry, with so little effort at accuracy of rendering or clearness of style, that any one less sanguine than he would have considered the attainment of the half-crown hopeless. Honorius glanced over the translation, and shook his head ominously, wishing that he might be allowed to make some improvements in it; but his father's injunction to Johnnie to accept no help put this out of the question, so it was delivered into Dr. Campbell's hands just as it was. The first part was very satisfactory. 'Very good, very good indeed, Johnnie!' he exclaimed as his eye ran rapidly down the neatly written lines; but his face lengthened as he went on. 'Why, how you have begun to scribble here, Johnnie!' he said as he reached the middle. 'And what do you mean by this? You have not even given the sense of this passage correctly. Here, take the book and translate it to me word by word.'
Johnnie stumbled wofully in his rendering, not from confusion, but from sheer ignorance; and both the written and verbal translation went on getting worse and worse, till at last the Doctor, who was rather a hasty man, lost all patience, and tossed the whole production into the fire, exclaiming, 'Pshaw! far from deserving any reward, that translation is the most wretched exhibition of carelessness and idleness that I ever saw. I don't know what's to become of you, Johnnie, if you can't, or rather won't, do better than that!'
The little boys glanced at poor Lackland in terror and dismay, and Willie's eyes filled with tears; but Johnnie only coloured, and, shutting up the volume of Cæsar, put it in its place again, and resumed the occupation of making a willow-wand into a bow, on which he had been engaged when his father summoned him. If Honorius had met with such a rebuff, he would have remained bitterly hurt and ashamed for the rest of the day, and Willie in the same case would have been utterly humbled and discouraged. Not so 'Jean-sans-terre.' What his cogitations were, his brothers could not decide; but the result was, that when he had bidden his father good-night, he paused a minute, and then added, 'May I have another try at Cæsar, papa?' The tone was bright and cheery, and Dr. Campbell looked up in pleased surprise—
'Do you really mean it, Johnnie?' he said hopefully.
'Yes, I do indeed, papa; but perhaps you wouldn't like the trouble of looking over another translation. I know that one was awful.'
'If you can take the trouble of writing it, I shall not begrudge the trouble of looking over it; but mind, it must be well done. I'd rather you took a month about it than brought me such a one as that of to-night.'
'Oh, thank you, papa, but that wouldn't suit me at all; I want the half-crown as quick as I can get it. I'll work night and day rather than not have the translation done soon.'