“The class in Cæsar,” said the teacher.
John rose slowly from his seat, and, book in hand, advanced pompously to the bench occupied by classes reciting. There was no other scholar so far advanced in Latin, and he looked down from his superior place of knowledge with calm contempt upon his fellow-pupils. His manner, as he advanced to recite, seemed to say, “Look at me! I am going to recite in Cæsar! I am a long way ahead of everybody else in school. They can’t any of them hold a candle to me.”
“Where does your lesson commence, Mr. Wall?” asked the teacher.
“At the beginning of the second book.”
“Very well. You may read and translate.”
John read the first line as follows, pronouncing according to a method of his own, Cum esset Cæsar in citeriore Gallia in hibernis, and furnished the following translation:
“He might be with Cæsar in hither Gaul in the winter.”
“I don’t think that is quite correct, Mr. Wall,” said the teacher.
“It makes good sense,” said John, pertly.
“It doesn’t make the right sense. Cum is not a preposition, and if it were it could not govern Cæsar in the nominative case.”