“Even if I accidentally see you doing any thing wrong, I shall not probably say any thing about it.  I shall remember it, and speak to you about it to-morrow morning, in my half-hour.  I shall do everything in my half-hour.”

Marco felt somewhat relieved, to think that he was not going to be under a very rigid observation in his studies.

“I do not expect,” said Forester, “that you will do very well for the first few days.  It will take some time to get this system under full operation.  I presume that you will come to me as many as ten times the first day.”

“O, no,” said Marco, “I don’t mean to come to you once.”

“You will,—­I have no doubt.  What shall I say to you if you do?  Will it be a good plan for me to answer your question?”

“Why, no,” said Marco, “I suppose not.”

“And yet, if I refuse to answer, it will not be very pleasant to you.  It will put you out of humor.”

“No,” said Marco.

“I will have one invariable answer to give you,” said Forester.  “It shall be this,—­Act according to your own judgment.  That will be a little more civil than to take no notice of your question at all, and yet it will preserve our principle,—­that I am to give you no assistance except in my half-hour.  Then, besides, I will keep an account of the number of questions you ask me, and see if they do not amount to ten.”

By this time Forester’s half-hour was out, and Marco went to his desk.

“There’s one thing,” said Marco, “before I begin:—­may I have the window open?”

“Act according to your own judgment,” said Forester, “and there is one question asked.”  So Forester made one mark upon a paper which he had upon the table.

“But, cousin Forester, it is not right to count that, for I had not begun.”

Forester made no reply, but began arranging his note-books, as if he was about commencing his own studies.  Marco looked at him a moment, and then he rose and gently opened the window and began his work.

[Illustration:  MARCO’S DESK.]

Marco was but little accustomed to solitary study, and, after performing one of the examples which Forester had given him, he thought he was tired, and he began to look out the window and to play with his pencil.  He would lay his pencil upon the upper side of his slate, and let it roll down.  As the pencil was not round, but polygonal in its form, it made a curious clicking sound in rolling down, which amused Marco, though it disturbed and troubled Forester.  Whatever may have been the nice peculiarities in the delicate mechanism of Forester’s ear, and of the nerves connected with it, compared with that of Marco’s, by which the same sound produced a sensation of pleasure in one ear, while it gave only pain in the other, it would require a very profound philosopher to explain.  But the effect was certain.  Forester, however, did not speak, but let Marco roll his pencil down the slate as long as he pleased.