"
"Then why doesn't he send you to the Naval Academy?"
"Because I can't enter without receiving the appointment from a
member of Congress. Our member can only appoint one, and there is no
vacancy. So, as I can't go where I want to, I am preparing for
Harvard."
"Are you studying Latin and Greek?"
"Yes."
"Have you studied them long?"
"About two years. I was looking over my Greek lesson when you
playfully tumbled over me."
"Will you let me look at your book? I never saw a Greek book."
"I sometimes wish I never had," said Oscar; "but that's when I am
lazy."
Harry opened the book--a Greek reader--in the middle of an extract
from Xenophon, and looked with some awe at the unintelligible letters.
"Can you read it? Can you understand what it means?" he asked,
looking up from the book.
"So-so."
"You must know a great deal."
Oscar laughed.
"I wonder what Dr. Burton would say if he heard you," he said.
"Who is he?"
"Principal of our Academy. He gave me a blowing up for my ignorance
to-day, because I missed an irregular Greek verb. I'm not exactly a
dunce, but I don't think I shall ever be a Greek professor."
"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.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34