He stopped suddenly in his enthusiastic outburst and his brow darkened. “Wait a bit. Perhaps you don’t realize that Cambridge is a matter of at least three years?”
“If it were twenty years it would matter little,” said Quong Ho.
“There’s Latin and Greek—compulsory. I was forgetting.”
“Greek,” replied Quong Ho, “I presume I could readily acquire. As for Latin I think I am acquainted with the grammar and I have already read the interesting Commentaries of Julius Cæsar on the Gallic War.”
Baltazar sank into a chair.
“Latin! You’ve learned Latin? When? How?”
Quong Ho explained apologetically that the simultaneous excitation of mind over the quotation at the head of the papers of The Rambler, and the discovery in the lowest rubbish shelf in the library of an old Latin grammar and a copy of the De Bello Gallico, had inaugurated his study of the Latin tongue. He had procured, not without difficulty, owing to the limited intelligence of the young lady in charge, a Latin dictionary, through the miniature bookshop in Water-End.
“Well, I’m damned!” said Baltazar. “I’m just damned. And now, do you mind telling me why you never mentioned a word of it to me?”
He looked fierce and angry. Quong Ho replied in his own tongue. How could the inconsiderable worm that was his illustrious lordship’s servant, presume to importune him with his inferior and unauthorized pursuits?
“I could have taught you twice as much in half the time,” said Baltazar.