“That is too bad,” I exclaimed. “A pretty figure I will make, going through the streets in this state.”
“Never mind, Charlie,” he answered. “Come into old Spurling’s shop; he will sew it up in a trice. He always mends our things; and I will pay for it.”
I at once accepted my school-fellow’s offer; and we made our way to the narrow lane in which Andrew’s small shop was situated. I had never before been there, though I had occasionally seen his tall, gaunt figure as he wended his way to church on Sunday; for on no other day in the week did he appear out of doors.
“Here’s Charlie Blore, who wants to have his jacket mended, Mr Spurling,” said Dick, introducing me.
“A grammar-school boy?” asked the tailor, looking at me.
“Yes; and in my class,” answered Dick.
“Oh! then you are reading Xenophon and Horace,” observed the tailor; and he quoted a passage from each author, both of which I was able to translate, greatly to his satisfaction. “You will soon be turning to other languages, I hope,” he observed, not having as yet touched my jacket, which I had taken off and handed to him.
“I should like to know a good many,” I answered: “French, German, and Italian.”
“Very well in their way,” observed Andrew; “but there are many I prefer which open up new worlds to our view: for every language we learn, we obtain further power of obtaining information and communicating our thoughts to others. Hebrew, for instance: where can we go without finding some of the ancient people? or Arabic, current over the whole Eastern world, from the Atlantic shores of Africa to the banks of the Indus? Have you ever read the ‘Arabian Nights’?” asked Andrew.
“Yes, part of it,” I answered.