"I shall have to ask you a few questions, my young friends; but I think there will be little difficulty in assigning you your places and studies. Be seated, please."
That library was plainly a place where no time was to be wasted, for in less than a minute more Ford Foster was suddenly stopped in the middle of a passage of easy Latin,—
"That will do. Give me a free translation."
Ford did so, glibly enough; but there followed no word of comment, favorable or otherwise. Similar brief glimpses were taken of three or four other studies; and then the doctor suddenly remarked to him, in French,—
"Your father has written me very fully concerning your previous studies.
You are well prepared, but you have plenty of hard work before you."
Ford fairly strained his best French in the reply he made; and the doctor observed,—
"I see. Constant practice. I wish more parents would be as wise.—Mr.
Harley, I had not been informed that you spoke French. You noticed Mr.
Foster's mistake. Please correct it for him."
Frank blushed to his eyes, but he obeyed; and he hardly knew how it was, that, before the doctor's rapid questioning was over, his answers had included the whole range of his schooling and acquirements.
"Isn't dey doin' fine!" was the proud thought in the mind of Dick Lee.
"But jes' wait till he gits hol' ob Cap'n Dab!"
Dick's confidence in his friend was at least ten times greater than Dabney's in himself. The very air of the room he was in seemed, to the latter, to grow oppressively heavy with learning, and he dreaded his own turn more than ever. While he was waiting for it to come, however, some casual reference to Long Island by the doctor, and a question as to the precise character of its southern coast, rapidly expanded into a wider range of geography, upon the heels of which history trod a little carelessly, and other subjects came tumbling in, until Dabney discovered that he was computing, at the doctor's request, sundry arithmetical results, which might with greater propriety have been reserved for his "examination." That, too, was the way poor Dick Lee came to make so bad a breakdown. His shining face would have told, even to eyes less practised than those of Dr. Brandegee, exactly the answer, as to kind and readiness, which he would have made to every question put to his white friends. That is, unless he had been directly called upon to "answer out aloud." There is no telling what he would have done in such a case as that.