“Say gentleman, Dexter.”
“Tall gentleman with a white handkerchief round his neck, and he has been asking me questions, and every time I answered him he sighed, and said, ‘Dear me!’”
“Indeed!” said Helen, smiling. “What did he ask you?”
“If I knew Euclid; and when I said I didn’t know him, he said, ‘Oh dear me!’ Then he asked me if I knew Algebra, and I said I didn’t, and he shook his head at me and said, ‘Dear me! dear me!’ and that he would have to pull me up. I say, what have I done to be pulled up!”
“Don’t you know that Euclid wrote a work on Geometry, and that Algebra is a study by which calculations are made!”
“No,” said Dexter eagerly. “I thought they were two people. Then why did he say he would have to pull me up?”
“He meant that you were very much behind with, your studies, and that he would have to teach you and bring you forward.”
“Oh, I see! And is he going to teach me?”
“Yes, Mr Limpney is your private tutor now; and he is coming every day, so I hope you will be very industrious, and try hard to learn.”
“Oh yes, I’ll try. Mr Limpney; I don’t think he much liked me, though.”