"If the two young gentlemen whispering on the back seat—"
You flushed angrily. Other fellows whispered on back seats. Why, always, did the whole school turn so knowingly to you?
Sitting, one study-hour, in the assembly-hall, Bertram's eyes wandered to the top of the Commentaries, strayed over the book to the braids of the Potter girl beyond, and on to the long, brown benches. The hum of recitations there, whispering behind him, giggling half suppressed, and the sharp rat-tat of the teacher's warning pencil came to him vaguely as in a dream. Through the tall windows he saw the spotless blue of the sky, the bright-green, swaying tips of the maples, and the flight of wings. Out there it was spring. Two more months of Cæsar—eight more dreary weeks of legions marching and barbarians bending beneath the yoke—then summer and the long vacation, knights jousting in the orchard, Indians scalping on the hill. Eight weeks—forty days of school.
Behind a sheltering grammar Peter was reading Hughes. Over his shoulder Bertram could make out Tom, just come to Rugby, watching the football, and that cool Crab Jones, fresh from a scrimmage, with the famous straw still hanging from his teeth. He read to the line of Peter's shoulder, then his eyes wandered again to the school-room window. It was spring in Grassy Ford—it was spring in Warwickshire....
"If the young gentleman gazing out of the window—"
"Tertia vigilia eruptionem fecerunt"—third watch—eruption—they made. Eruptionem—eruption—pimples—break out—sally. They made a sally at the third watch. Tertia vigilia, ablative case. Ablative of what? Ablative of time. Why ablative of time? Because a noun denoting—oh, hang their eruptionem! They were dead and buried long ago. Why does a fellow learn such stuff? Help his English—huh! English helps his Latin—that's what. How does a fellow know eruptionem? Because he's seen pimples—that's how. No sense learning Latin. Dead language—dead as a door-nail....
Bertram Weatherby drew a picture on the margin of his book—a head, shoulders, two arms, a trunk—and trousered legs. Carefully, then, he dotted in the eyes—the nose—the mouth—the ears beneath the tousled hair. He rolled the shirt-sleeves to the elbows—drew the trousers-belt—the shoes. Then delicately, smiling to himself the while, his head tilted, his eyes squinted like a connoisseur, he drew a straw pendent from the figure's lips.
"Peter, who's that?"
"Sh! not so loud. She'll hear you."