"
"We, are so glad we are," said Marguerite, as she danced away from
him under her parasol.
Farther down the street she met Professor Hardage.
"I know all about your old Odyssey--your old Horace and all those
things," she said threateningly. "I am not as ignorant as you
think."
"I wish Horace had known you."
"Would it have been nice?"
"He might have written an ode _Ad Margaritam_ instead of _Ad
Lalagem_."
"Then I might have been able to read it," she said. "In school I
couldn't read the other one. But you mustn't think that I did not
read a great deal of Latin. The professor used to say that I read
my Latin b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l-l-y, but that I didn't get much English
out of it. I told him I got as much English out of it as the
Romans did, and that they certainly ought to have known what it was
meant for."
"That must have taught him a lesson!"
"Oh, he said I'd do: I was called the girl who read Latin
perfectly, regardless of English. And, then, I won a prize for an
essay on the three most important things that the United States has
contributed to the civilizations of the Old World. I said they
were tobacco, wild turkeys and idle curiosity. Of course every one
knew about tobacco and turkeys; but wasn't it clever of me to think
of idle curiosity? Now, wasn't it? I made a long list of things
and then I selected these from my list."
"I'd like to know what the other things were!"
"Oh, I've forgotten now! But they were very important at the time.
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