“Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!”
“Oh, Tom, it’s such a pretty book!” she said, as she jumped out of the large arm-chair to give it him; “it’s much prettier than the Dictionary. I could learn Latin very soon. I don’t think it’s at all hard.”
“Oh, I know what you’ve been doing,” said Tom; “you’ve been reading the English at the end. Any donkey can do that.”
Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and business-like air, as much as to say that he had a lesson to learn which no donkeys would find themselves equal to. Maggie, rather piqued, turned to the bookcases to amuse herself with puzzling out the titles.
Presently Tom called to her: “Here, Magsie, come and hear if I can say this. Stand at that end of the table, where Mr Stelling sits when he hears me.”
Maggie obeyed, and took the open book.
“Where do you begin, Tom?”
“Oh, I begin at ’Appellativa arborum,’ because I say all over again what I’ve been learning this week.”
Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines; and Maggie was beginning to forget her office of prompter in speculating as to what mas could mean, which came twice over, when he stuck fast at Sunt etiam volucrum.
“Don’t tell me, Maggie; Sunt etiam volucrum—Sunt etiam volucrum—ut ostrea, cetus——”