r young scholar. At her request he made
the tall steed walk, in order that her pencil might not be too much
joggled, slyly thinking, the while, that thus the interview would be
prolonged. The air was warm and balmy. Everything was still about them.
They met no one, and every minute Mr. Tippengray became more and more
convinced that, next to talking to her, there could be no greater joy in
life than basking in the immediate atmosphere of this girl.

At last she shut up her dictionary.

"Now, then!" she exclaimed, "I have translated it, and I assure you that
it is a fair and square version, for I do not in the least remember the
original paragraph."

"I have the original here," said Mr. Tippengray, pulling the second
volume of "Pickwick" from his pocket, "and we will compare it with your
translation, if you will be so good as to read it. You do not know with
what anxious enthusiasm I await the result."

"And I, too," said Ida, earnestly. "I do not think there could be a
better test of the power of the Greek language to embalm and preserve
for future generations the spirit of Dickens. Now I will read, and you
can compare my work with the original as I go on."

The translation ran thus:

"For the reason that he who drives a vehicle of the
post-road holds high office above the masses," to him
answered the Sire Weller with eyes affiliated; "for the
reason that he who drives a vehicle of the post-road acteth
at will, undoubted, humanity otherwise prohibited. For the
reason that he who drives a vehicle of the post-road is able
to look with affection on a woman of eighty far distant,
though it is not publicly believed that in the midst of any
it is his desire to wed. Among males which one discourseth
similarly, Sammy?"

"I wrote Sammy," she explained, "because I remembered that is the way
the name is used in English."

Mr. Tippengray raised his eyebrows very high, and his chin slowly began
to approach the sailor knot of his cravat.

"Oh, dear," he said, "I am afraid that this would not express to future
ages the spirit and style of Dickens. The original passage runs thus,"
and he read:

"'Cos a coachman's a privileged individual," replied Mr.
Weller, looking fixedly at his son. "'Cos a coachman may do
without suspicion wot other men may not; 'cos a coachman may
be on the very amicablest terms with eighty mile o' females
and yet nobody thinks