Master P. Glenn was concluding his note when his father passed through the room and glanced over the boy's shoulder. He (Mr. Glenn) was a surgeon; one of the chief surgeons attached to the Helstonleigh infirmary, and in excellent practice. "At your exercise, Philip?"
"No, papa. I am writing a note to one of our fellows. I want him to be of our fishing party on Wednesday."
"Wednesday! Have you a holiday on Wednesday?"
"Yes. Don't you know it will be a saint's day?"
"Not I," said Mr. Glenn. "Saints' days don't concern me as they do you college boys. That's a pretty specimen of English!" he added, running his amused eyes over Philip's note.
"Are there any mistakes in it?" returned Philip. "But it's no matter, papa. We don't profess to write English in the college school."
"It is well you don't profess it," remarked Mr. Glenn. "But how is it your friend Halliburton can turn out good English?" He had taken up Frank's letter.
"Oh! they are such chaps for learning, the two Halliburtons. They stick at it like a horse-leech—never getting the cane for turned lessons. They have school at home in the evenings for English, and history, and such stuff that they don't get at college."
"Have they a tutor?"
"They are not rich enough for a tutor. Mrs. Halliburton's the tutor. What do you think Gar Halliburton did the other day? Keating was having a row with the fourth desk, and he gave them some extra verses to do. Up goes Gar Halliburton, before he had been a minute at his seat. 'If you please, sir,' says he to Keating, 'I had better have another piece.' 'Why so?' asks Keating. 'Because,' says Gar, 'I did these same verses with my brother at home a week ago.' He meant his eldest brother; not Frank. But, now, was not that honourable, papa?"