CHAPTER IX.

The class in Virgil.

Presently the class in Virgil was called up.  To this class Hector had been assigned, though it had only advanced about half through the third book of the AEneid, while Hector was in the fifth.

“As there is no other class in Virgil, Roscoe, you had better join the one we have.  It will do you no harm to review.”

“Very well, sir,” said Hector.

The class consisted of five boys, including Hector.  Besides Jim Smith, Wilkins, Bates and Johnson belonged to it.  As twenty-five lines had been assigned for a lesson, Hector had no difficulty in preparing himself, and that in a brief time.  The other boys were understood to have studied the lesson out of school.

Bates read first, and did very fairly.  Next came Jim Smith, who did not seem quite so much at home in Latin poetry as on the playground.  He pronounced the Latin words in flagrant violation of all the rules of quantity, and when he came to give the English meaning, his translation was a ludicrous farrago of nonsense.  Yet, poor Mr. Crabb did not dare, apparently, to characterize it as it deserved.

“I don’t think you have quite caught the author’s meaning, Mr. Smith,” he said.  By the way, Jim was the only pupil to whose name he prefixed the title “Mr.”

“I couldn’t make anything else out of it,” muttered Jim.

“Perhaps some other member of the class may have been more successful!  Johnson, how do you read it?”

“I don’t understand it very well, sir.”

“Wilkins, were you more successful?”

“No, sir.”

“Roscoe, can you translate the passage?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Proceed, then.”

Hector at once gave a clear and luminous rendering of the passage, and his version was not only correct, but was expressed in decent English.  This is a point in which young classical scholars are apt to fail.

Mr. Crabb was not in the habit of hearing such good translations, and he was surprised and gratified.

“Very well!  Very well, indeed, Roscoe,” he said, approvingly.  “Mr. Smith, you may go on.”

“He’d better go ahead and finish it,” said Smith, sulkily.  “He probably got it out of a pony.”

My young readers who are in college or classical schools, will understand that a “pony” is an English translation of a classical author.

“He is mistaken!” said Hector, quietly.  “I have never seen a translation of Virgil.”

Mr. Smith shrugged his shoulders, and drew down the corners of his mouth, intending thereby to express his incredulity.

“I hope no boy will use a translation,” said the usher; “it will make his work easier for the time being, but in the end it will embarrass him.  Roscoe, as you have commenced, you may continue.  Translate the remainder of the passage.”