“I haven’t been reading your b-b-books, sir; I’ve been reading my own. All I had to do was to hand up boxes of fuf-fuf-fancy stationery, and—“
“I see,” interposed Mr. Copernicus, hurriedly, “there hasn’t been any very great call for fancy stationery this year.”
“And when there wasn’t any c-c-call for it, I read. I ain’t going to be a pip-pip-porter all my life. Would you?”
“Why, of course, my boy,” said Mr. Copernicus, “if you are reading to improve your mind, in your leisure time—let’s see your book.”
The young man handed him a tattered duodecimo.
“Why, it’s Virgil!” exclaimed his employer. “You can’t read this.”
“Some of it I kik-kik-can,” returned the employee, “and some of it I kik-kik-can’t.”
Mr. Copernicus sought out “Arma virumque” and “Tityre, tu patulæ,” and one or two other passages he was sure of, and the studious young porter read them in the artless accent which the English attribute to the ancient Romans, and translated them with sufficient accuracy.
“Where did you learn to read Latin?”
“I p-p-picked it up in odd hours.”