No, Bobus must not come to that, and he is too young to
begin special training. Will you talk to him, Mr. Ogilvie? You know
if my horse is not convinced I may bring him to the water, but it
will be all in vain."
They had reached the outside of the window of the dining-room, where
the school-boys were learning their lessons for the morrow. Bobus
was sitting at the table with a small lamp so shaded as to
concentrate the light on him and to afford it to no one else. On the
floor was a servant's flat candlestick, mounted on a pile of books,
between one John sprawling at full length preparing his Virgil, the
other cross-legged, working a sum with ink from a doll's tea-cup
placed in the candlestick, and all the time there was a wonderful
mumbling accompaniment, as there always was between those two.
"I say, what does pulsum come from?"
"What a brute this is of a fraction! Skipjack, what will go in 639
and 852?"
"Pulsum, a pulse-—volat, flies. Eh! Three'll do it. Or common
measure it at once."
"Bother common measure. The threes in—-"
"Fama, fame; volat, flies; pulsum, the pulse; cecisse, to have
ceased; paternis regnis, in the paternal kingdom. I say wouldn't
that rile Perkins like fun?"
"The threes in seven-—two—-in eighteen-—"
"I say, Johnny, is pulsum from pulco?"
"Never heard of it.
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