“Well, we were in a baddish way before he came, I own; but this new crotchet of his is past a joke.”
“Let's give it a trial, Harry; come. You know how often he has been right and we wrong.”
“Now, don't you two be jawing away about young Square-toes,” struck in Gower. “He's no end of a sucking wiseacre, I dare say; but we've no time to lose, and I've got the fives court at half-past nine.”
“I say, Gower,” said Tom appealingly, “be a good fellow, and let's try if we can't get on without the crib.”
“What! in this chorus? Why, we shan't get through ten lines.”
“I say, Tom,” cried East, having hit on a new idea, “don't you remember, when we were in the upper fourth, and old Momus caught me construing off the leaf of a crib which I'd torn out and put in my book, and which would float out on to the floor, he sent me up to be flogged for it?”
“Yes, I remember it very well.”
“Well, the Doctor, after he'd flogged me, told me himself that he didn't flog me for using a translation, but for taking it in to lesson, and using it there when I hadn't learnt a word before I came in. He said there was no harm in using a translation to get a clue to hard passages, if you tried all you could first to make them out without.”
“Did he, though?” said Tom; “then Arthur must be wrong.”
“Of course he is,” said Gower—“the little prig. We'll only use the crib when we can't construe without it.—Go ahead, East.”