"Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum," droned out Dickson max., in painful endeavour to bury a dead language in the very stiff clay of his mind. "Through various causes ..."
"Now how can you say 'causes,' Dickson? You know perfectly well what it is that Aeneas is saying. He is exhorting his followers to press towards Rome against all sorts of bad luck. 'Casus' should have been translated 'chances.' 'Per tot discrimina rerum' is, of course, 'through so many changes of fortune.' Imagine Aeneas is Sir John French, pressing onwards to Berlin."
It was fatal; that gave the signal.
"Sir," said Dickson major instantly, "did you see any of the Royal Naval Flying Corps in London?"
Dickson max. put down his Virgil. "Is it true, sir, that they have got a hundred armoured motor cars, each one with a maxim gun on it?"—questions from eager faces were fired at me from all parts of the room.
I trust I am no precisian, as the people in Stevenson's stories are always saying, and I confess that, for the next quarter of an hour I held forth in an animated fashion about all that I had seen and done in London. After all, it is the duty of a schoolmaster to encourage patriotism, isn't it? I was just describing some of the new aerial guns that we are mounting on some of the principal London buildings for the defence of the city against Zeppelins, when there was a most appalling crash and howl outside in the corridor.
There was dead silence for an instant, then I jumped down from my desk and rushed out. An unpleasant, almost a terrifying spectacle met my eyes. Old Mrs. Gaunt, the matron, was rolling upon the flags of the corridor like a wounded ostrich, yelping, there is really no other word for it, as if in agony. Her face was pale as linen and her mouth was twisted. She was obviously in great pain.
"Whatever has happened?" I said, trying to help her, but as I lifted the old thing by the shoulder she shrieked loudly and I had to lay her down again.
"My leg's broken!" she cried, "my leg's broken! One of those filthy boys left his ball about, and I trod on it"—and indeed I saw, a few yards away, the white fives ball which had been the cause of her disaster.
The porter was summoned, we improvised an ambulance somehow, and took the poor old thing to her room in the Doctor's wing, Doris and Marjorie attending to her, while the porter rushed off on his bicycle for the nearest doctor.