I was walking one day with one of the bright boys of whom I spoke, and I asked him, as I had his father, if I was not keeping him away from his regular occupation. Ought he not be at school?
"No," said he; "this is my off-term."
"Pray, what is that?"
"Don't you know? We only go to school three months in winter and three in summer. I thought you did so in America. I know Mr. Webster did. I read it in his Life."
I was on the point of saying that we knew now how to train more powerful men than Mr. Webster, but the words stuck in my throat, and the boy rattled on.
"The teachers have to be there all the time, except when they go in retreat. They take turns about retreat. But we are in two choroi; I am choros-boy now, James is anti-choros. Choros have school in January, February, March, July, August, September. Next year I shall be anti-choros."
"Which do you like best,—off-term or school?" said I.
"O, both is as good as one. When either begins, we like it. We get rather sick of either before the three months are over."
"What do you do in your off-terms?" said I,—"go fishing?"
"No, of course not," said he, "except Strep, and Hipp, and Chal, and those boys, because their fathers are fishermen. No, we have to be in our fathers' offices, we big boys; the little fellows, they let them stay at home. If I was here without you now, that truant-officer we passed just now would have had me at home before this time. Well, you see they think we learn about business, and I guess we do. I know I do," said he, "and sometimes I think I should like to be a Proxenus when I am grown up, but I do not know."