Lanigan Beam had no more fear of Mr. Tippengray as a rival than he would have had of Mr. Petter, but the apportionment of companions for the return trip nettled him a good deal, and, as a consequence of this, the pair of grays traveled homeward at a smarter pace, and Hammerstein and the village cart were soon left far behind.
The road was not the one by which Mr. Tippengray had arrived on the scene, but led through the woods to the main road, which it joined at a point not far from the sign of the Squirrel Inn. Hammerstein traveled very quietly and steadily of his own accord, slackening his gait at the rough places, thus giving Mr. Tippengray every opportunity for an uninterrupted converse with his fellow scholar; and he lost no time in submitting to her his Greek version of the lines from "Pickwick."
"I am very glad you have it with you," said Ida, "for I put my Greek dictionary in my pocket this morning, when I first came down, hoping to have a chance to do some translating, and what better chance could I have than this?"
THE TRANSLATION.
Drawing out her dictionary and a little blank-book she immediately began her labors. Mr. Tippengray did not altogether like this. He felt an intense and somewhat novel desire to converse with the young woman on no matter what subject, and he would have preferred that she should postpone the translation. But he would not interrupt the engrossing occupation into which she now plunged with ardor. Rapidly turning backward and forward the leaves of the little dictionary, and tapping her front teeth with her pencil as she puzzled over the correlation of Greek and English words and expressions, she silently pursued her work.
Although he did not talk to her, it was very pleasant for Mr. Tippengray to sit and look upon this fair young scholar. At her request he made the tall steed walk, in order that her pencil might not be too much joggled, slyly thinking, the while, that thus the interview would be prolonged. The air was warm and balmy. Everything was still about them. They met no one, and every minute Mr. Tippengray became more and more convinced that, next to talking to her, there could be no greater joy in life than basking in the immediate atmosphere of this girl.
At last she shut up her dictionary.
"Now, then!" she exclaimed, "I have translated it, and I assure you that it is a fair and square version, for I do not in the least remember the original paragraph."
"I have the original here," said Mr. Tippengray, pulling the second volume of "Pickwick" from his pocket, "and we will compare it with your translation, if you will be so good as to read it. You do not know with what anxious enthusiasm I await the result."