“Alcibiades,” answered Tom, doubtfully.
“Alcibiades!” shouted Hardy; “you fresh from Rugby, and not know your Thucydides better than that? There's Alcibiades, that little purple-headed, foppish pin, by Socrates. This rusty-colored one is that respectable old stick-in-the-mud, Nicias.”
“Well, but you've made Alcibiades nearly the smallest of the whole lot,” said Tom.
“So he was, to my mind,” said Hardy; “just the sort of insolent young ruffian whom I should have liked to buy at my price, and sell at his own. He must have been very like some of our gentlemen-commoners, with the addition of brains.”
“I should really think, though,” said Tom, “It must be a capital plan for making you remember the history.”
“It is, I flatter myself. I've long had the idea, but I should never have worked it out and found the value of it but for Grey. I invented it to coach him in his history. You see we are in the Grecian corner. Over there is the Roman. You'll find Livy and Tacitus worked out there, just as Herodotus and Thucydides are here; and the pins are stuck for the Second Punic War, where we are just now. I shouldn't wonder if Grey got his first, after all, he's picking up so quick in my corners; and says he never forgets any set of events when he has picked them out with the pins.”
“Is he working at that school still?” asked Tom.
“Yes, as hard as ever. He didn't go down for the vacation, and I really believe it was because the curate told him the school would go wrong if he went away.”
“It's very plucky of him, but I do think he's a great fool not to knock it off now till he has passed, don't you?”
“No,” said Hardy; “he is getting more good there than he can ever get in the schools, though I hope he'll do well in them too.”