What was the good of friends if they could only make idiotic suggestions like that?
He retired, brooding, to his house.
The day was Wednesday. There were only two more days, therefore, in which to prepare a quarter of a book of Livy. It couldn't be done. The thing was not possible.
In the house he met Smythe.
'What are you going to do about it?' he inquired. Smythe was top of the form, and if he didn't know how to grapple with a crisis of this sort, who could know?
'If you'll kindly explain,' said Smythe, 'what the dickens you are talking about, I might be able to tell you.'
Pillingshot explained, with unwonted politeness, that 'it' meant the Livy examination.
'Oh,' said Smythe, airily, 'that! I'm just going to skim through it in case I've forgotten any of it. Then I shall read up the notes carefully. And then, if I have time, I shall have a look at the history of the period. I should advise you to do that, too.'
'Oh, don't be a goat,' said Pillingshot.
And he retired, brooding, as before.