“If you speak of yourself that way, what will you think of me?  I don’t know a word of Latin, of Greek, or any language except my own.”

“Because you have had no chance to learn.  There’s one language I know more about than Latin or Greek.”

“English?”

“I mean French; I spent a year at a French boarding-school, three years since.”

“What!  Have you been in France?”

“Yes; an uncle of mine—­in fact, the editor—­was going over, and urged father to send me.  I learned considerable French, but not much else.  I can speak and understand it pretty well.”

“How I wish I had had your advantages,” said Harry.  “How did you like your French schoolmates?”

“They wouldn’t come near me at first.  Because I was an American they thought I carried a revolver and a dirk-knife, and was dangerous.  That is their idea of American boys.  When they found I was tame, and carried no deadly weapons, they ventured to speak with me, and after that we got along pretty well.”

“How soon do you expect to go to college?”

“A year from next summer.  I suppose I shall be ready by that time.  You are going to stay in town, I suppose?”

“Yes, if I keep my place.”

“Oh, you’ll do that.  Then we can see something of each other.  You must come up to my room, and see me.  Come almost any evening.”

“I should like to.  Do you live in Dr. Barton’s family?”

“No, I hope not.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, the Doctor has a way of looking after the fellows that room in the house, and of keeping them at work all the time.  That wouldn’t suit me.  I board at Mrs. Greyson’s, at the south-east corner of the church common.  Have you got anything to do this evening?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“Then come round and take a look at my den, or sanctum I ought to call it; as I am talking to a member of the editorial profession.”

“Not quite yet,” said Harry, smiling.

“Oh, well that’ll come in due time.  Will you come?”

“Sha’n’t I be disturbing you?”

“Not a bit.  My Greek lesson is about finished, and that’s all I’ve got to do this evening.  Come round, and we will sit over the fire, and chat like old friends.”

“Thank you, Oscar,” said Harry, irresistibly attracted by his bright and lively acquaintance, “I shall enjoy calling.  I have made no acquaintances yet, and I feel lonely.”

“I have got over that,” said Oscar.  “I am used to being away from home and don’t mind it.”

The two boys walked together to Oscar’s boarding-place.  It was a large house, of considerable pretension for a village, and Oscar’s room was large and handsomely furnished.  But what attracted Harry’s attention was not the furniture, but a collection of over a hundred books, ranged on shelves at one end of the room.  In his father’s house it had always been so difficult to obtain the necessaries of life that books had necessarily been regarded as superfluities, and beyond a dozen volumes which Harry had read and re-read, he was compelled to depend on such as he could borrow.  Here again his privileges were scanty, for most of the neighbors were as poorly supplied as his father.