“I’d jolly well like to catch them not,” said Percy, tossing his head: “I’d teach ’em. I say, do you think ‘unrectus’ will do?”
“Remember, you’ll get it pretty hot if you disobey in this, I promise you.”
“Perhaps ‘malus’ is better form,” suggested the junior.
Clapperton left in despair.
“What a fearful ass I was,” said Percy when he had gone, “not to make him write my impot! Just like me. Catch our lot not going to that meeting! We aint going to skulk. Whew! there goes the quarter to! I shall never get done this brutal thing.”
“Id est malus non facere quad magister dicit. Vos voluntas laetus audire ut Fellsgarthus liquebat Rendleshamus ad pedemballum super Saturdaium durare,” (Saturday last). “Nos obtenebanus unum goalum ad nil quod non erat malum. Ego debeo nunc concludere. Ego sum vestrum fideliter Perceius Granum agrum.” (Percy flattered himself he knew the correct Latin for his own name.)
He had a rush to get this work of art over to Mr Forder in time, and was considerably mortified to observe that the master did not seem at all gratified by the performance. Just like Forder! the more you laid yourself out to please him, the worse he was.
“Leave it, sir. I’ll speak to you to-morrow.”
“That means a licking,” said Percy to himself. “I can see it in his eye. All serene. That’s his way of showing his gratitude.”
And he went back in a very bad temper to his own room, where his comrades had arrived to greet him.