"I don't know what you call trying hard, Archer, but it's utterly impossible, if you had taken the trouble to look the words out in the Gradus, that you could have made such mistakes as those here."
"I don't know, sir," Jack answered. "I can do exercises and translations and all that sort of thing well enough, but I always break down with verses, and I don't see what good they are, except for fellows who want to write Latin verses for tombstones."
"That has nothing to do with it," the master said; "and I am not going to discuss the utility of verses with you. I shall report you to Dr. Wallace, and if you will not work in your holidays, you will have to do so in your play-hours."
Jack retired to his seat, and for the next ten minutes indulged in a diatribe against classical learning in general, and hexameters and pentameters in particular.
Presently one of the sixth form came down to where Jack was sitting,—
"Archer, Dr. Wallace wants you."
"Oh, lord," Jack groaned, "now I'm in for it! I haven't seen Marshall get out of his seat. I suppose he has written a report about those beastly verses."
The greeting of Dr. Wallace was, however, of a different nature from that which he had anticipated.
"Archer," he said, "I have just received a note from your father. You are to go home at once."
Jack Archer opened his eyes in astonishment. It was but an hour and a half since he had started from Harbledown, a mile or so distant from the school. His father had said nothing at breakfast, and what on earth could he want him home again for?