"Corbet!" said I. "That is my name."
"It is our new master's name, too, and we are to begin with him to-morrow."
"Then see that you have your task well conned, so as not to shame your mistress," said I.
He was such a baby that I could not forbear kissing his round, fair cheek. Then I betook myself to Mistress Curtis's parlor, where I found her, and also Mistress Mandeville, who was making a kerchief at the rate of ten stitches a minute, and lifting every one as though she were prying up stones with a crowbar. It did always make me ache to see her sew.
"Well and what of your pupil?" asked Mistress Curtis.
"Oh, I have sent him away happy," said I. "'Tis a fine little lad, though he says his master calls him stupid because he can not learn what he does not understand."
"I dare say. He is a crabbed, austere man, soured by poverty and hard study before he came here, and his temper is not sweetened by the tricks the mischievous lads play on him. But he goes away very soon to some benefice or other. By the way, the new tutor has the same name as your own."
"So little Roger tells me," said I. "I had a distant cousin of that name, my Lady Peckham's son, who went to study for a priest. I wonder if this could possibly be the same?"
"This young man hath come up to London, as understand, to study the Hebrew tongue," said Mistress Curtis.
"Dear me, why should he want to learn Hebrew?" asked Mrs. Mandeville. "He is not a Jew, is he?"