“I know; but you won't be asked to speak it, and very few of your examiners could understand you if you did. How do you say 'a tired child'?”
“Un enfant fatigué.”
“And how do you say 'a beautiful day'?”
“Un beau jour.”
“Well, now, why do you put one adjective ahead of the noun and the other after it?”
The uneducated youth looked blank. “I really don't know,” said he. “I just do it.”
“Exactly. But the examination paper will ask you to state the rule, or give the list of exceptions, or whatever it may be. And what will you do?”
“I guess I'll have to go back to France,” said Lanny.
II
Mr. Harper decided that by heroic efforts it might be possible for this eccentric pupil to be got ready for the third year of prep school in the fall. Private academies were not so crowded as public high schools, and were better able to handle exceptional cases. But the first thing was to buckle down to plane and solid geometry, and to ancient and medieval history. Yes, said Mr. Harper, Sophocles and Euripides might help, but what really counted was facts. If a candidate were to tell a board of examiners that the Greek spirit was basically one of tragedy, how would they know whether he was spoofing them? But if he said that the naval battle of Salamis was won in the year 480 B.C. by the Athenian Themistocles, there was something that couldn't be faked.