"He be a rum 'un, be Jack," they would say; "he looves games, and can lick any chap his age anywhere round, and yet he shoots himself oop and reads and reads hours and hours every day, and he knows a heap, Bull-dog does." Not that Jack was in the habit of parading his acquirements; indeed he took the greatest pains to conceal them and to show that in no respect did he differ from his playfellows.
The two hours which he now spent twice a week with Mr. Merton, and his extensive reading, had modified his rough Staffordshire dialect, and when with his master he spoke correct English almost free of provincialisms, although with his comrades of the pit he spoke as they spoke, and never introduced any allusion to his studies. All questions as to his object in spending his evenings with his books were turned aside with joking answers, but his comrades had accidentally discovered that he possessed extraordinary powers of calculation. One of the lads had vaguely said that he wondered how many buckets of water there were in the canal between Stokebridge and Birmingham, a distance of eighteen miles, and Jack, without seeming to think of what he was doing, almost instantaneously gave the answer to the question. For a moment all were silent with surprise.
"I suppose that be a guess, Jack, eh?" Fred Orme asked.
"Noa," Jack said, "that's aboot roight, though I be sorry I said it; I joost reckoned it in my head."
"But how didst do that, Jack?" his questioner asked, astonished, while the boys standing round stared in silent wonder.
"Oh! in my head," Jack said carelessly; "it be easy enough to reckon in your head if you practise a little."
"And canst do any sum in thy head, Jack, as quick as that?"
"Not any sum, but anything easy, say up to the multiplication or division by eight figures."
"Let's try him," one boy said.
"All right, try away," Jack said. "Do it first on a bit of paper, and then ask me."