"What do you learn at school, George?" questioned Mr. Berkeley.
"Latin and Greek, and mathematics, and——"
"But, George, where will be the good of such things to you?" cried Farmer Apperley, not allowing him to end the catalogue. "Latin and Greek and mathematics! What next, I wonder!"
"I don't see much good in giving a boy that sort of education myself," put in Mr. Chattaway, before any one else had time to speak. "Unless he is to take up a profession, the classics only lie fallow in the mind. I hated them, I know that; I and my brother, too. Many and many a caning we have had over our Latin, until we wished the books at the bottom of the sea. Twelve months after we left school we could not have construed a page, had it been put before us. That's all the good Latin did for us."
"I shall keep up my Latin and Greek," observed George, very independently, "although I may have to leave school."
"Why need you keep it up?" asked Mr. Chattaway, turning full upon George.
"Why?" echoed George. "I like it, for one thing. And a knowledge of the classics is necessary to a gentleman."
"Necessary to what?" cried Mr. Chattaway.
"To a gentleman," repeated George.
"Oh," said Mr. Chattaway. "Do you think of being one?"