“I am at the fifth chapter in the second book.”
“You may go on where you left off. How much are you accustomed to take?”
“Fifteen lines.”
“That is a short lesson, but perhaps it will be well not to take any more till I find out whether you are able to do so.”
“Did you take any more when you studied Cæsar?” asked John, who privately thought fifteen lines a very good lesson.
“From fifty to seventy-five lines,” answered Walter, rather to the mortification of John. Then it occurred to the latter that it would be a good thing if he could “stick” the new teacher; that is, to convict him of ignorance. Accordingly he opened his Cæsar at a passage in the preceding lesson, which he had found difficult, and said: “There is something here that I don’t understand. Will you read it to me?”
“Certainly. What is the passage?”
It was a passage which Walter would have been able to read at any rate, but he had the additional advantage of having read it over the week before in Mr. Barclay’s book, and so, of course, it was very familiar. Though Walter was a good scholar, as far as he had gone, I don’t, of course, claim that he could read anywhere in Cæsar at sight. But this passage he understood perfectly well. He read it fluently, and John was disappointed to find that he had failed in his benevolent design. Indeed, he saw that Walter was probably a better Latin scholar than the previous teacher; and, though he ought to have been glad of this, he was so prejudiced against Walter, and so anxious to humiliate him, that he was sorry, instead.
“Whenever you meet with a difficulty, John,” said Walter, after finishing the reading, “I shall be ready to help you. But I strongly advise you not to apply to me until you have done your best to make it out yourself. That will do you more good. You may recite your first lesson to-morrow.”
He left John, and went to the next desk.