“Why such enthusiasm on the part of Colonel Graeme?”
“Simple enough. Livius spoke Latin with in accent which bore out the old boy’s contention. I believe they also agreed on the ablative absolute.”
“Yes—er—naturally,” drawled Average Jones. “Does our early Roman speak pretty ready Latin?”
“He’s fairly fluent. Sometimes he stumbles a little on his constructions, and he’s apt to be—well—monkish—rather than classical when in full course.”
“Doesn’t wear the toga virilis, I suppose.”
“Oh, no. Plain American clothes. It’s only his inner man that’s Roman, of course. He met with bump on the head—this is his story, and he’s got a the scar to show for it—and when he came to, he’d lost ground a couple of thousand years and returned to his former existence. No English. No memory of who or what he’d been. No money connection whatsoever with the living world.”
“Humph! Wonder if he’s been a student of Kippling. You remember ‘The Greatest Story in the World; the reincarnated galley slave?’ Now as to this Colonel Graeme; has he ever published?”
“Yes. Two small pamphlets, issued by the Classicist Press, which publishes the Classical Weekly.”
“Supporting his fads, I suppose.”
“Right. He devoted one pamphlet to each.”