“Yes, I’ve been over it once; it looks pretty easy.”
“For you perhaps,” replied Jim. “It won’t be for me, though.”
“Speaking of Latin,” said Gil, “something’s due to happen to Nancy Hanks pretty soon if he doesn’t brace up. They say J. G. is getting very much peeved at him. There was a peach of a rough house in history this morning, wasn’t there, Poke?”
“Lovely! But I’m sorry for Nancy, just the same. Bull Gary makes me tired. He’s got half a dozen of the fellows trained now so that every time he starts something they all drop into line and poor Nancy’s life is a positive burden to him.”
“He shows it, too,” observed Jeffrey. “He’s getting to look as worried and nervous as—as a wet hen.”
“That’s so,” said Jim. “We’ve sort of let up on him in our classes. The fun wore off after awhile.”
“Because you haven’t any one in your bunch with the inventive genius of Mr. Gary,” said Poke. “Bull lies awake nights, I guess, thinking up new mischief. Somebody will just have to sit on him, Gil, and sit hard.”
“Yes, maybe. Still, perhaps, after all, Crofton isn’t just the place for Nancy. And if it isn’t he might as well make the discovery now as later. I guess he knows an awful lot, but I don’t believe he can teach it. And as for discipline, why, he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”
“Oh, he knows what it means all right,” corrected Poke, “but he doesn’t know how to go to work to enforce it. I’ll bet you he never taught before in his life.”