ody--"

"Mr. Rapid, I do not mean to question your abilities; but if you are now
wholly unacquainted with the dead languages, it is impossible for you or
any other talented man to learn them under four or five years."

"Pshoo! foo! I'll bet I larn one in three weeks! Try me, sir,--let's
have the furst one furst--how many are there?"

"Mr. Rapid, it is utterly impossible; but if you insist, I will loan you
a Latin book--"

"That's your sort, let's have it, that's all I want, fair play."

Accordingly, I handed him a copy of Historiae Sacrae, with which he soon
went away, saying, he "didn't allow it would take long to git through
Latin, if 'twas only sich a thin patch of a book as that."

In a few weeks, to my no small surprise, Mr. Solomon Rapid again
presented himself; and drawing forth the book began with a triumphant
expression of countenance:

"Well, sir, I have done the Latin."

"Done the Latin!"

"Yes, I can read it as fast as English."

"Read it as fast as English!!"

"Yes, as fast as English--and I didn't find it hard at all."

"May I try you on a page?"

"Try away, try away; that's what I've come for."

"Please read here then, Mr. Rapid;" and in order to give him a fair
chance, I pointed to the first lines of the first chapter, viz.: "In
principio Deus creavit coelum et terram intra sex dies; primo die
fecit lucem," etc.

"That, sir?" and then he read thus, "In prinspo duse creevit kalelum et
terrum intra sex dyes--primmo dye fe-fe-sit looseum," etc.

"That will do, Mr. Rapid--"

"Ah! ha! I told you so."

"Yes, yes--but translate."

"Translate!" (eyebrows elevating.)

"Yes, translate, render it."

"Render it!! how's that?" (forehead more wrinkled.)

"Why, yes, render it into English--give me the meaning of it."

"MEANING!!" (staring full in my face, his eyes like saucers, and
forehead wrinkled with the furrows of eighty)--"MEANING!! I didn't know
it _had_ any meaning. I thought it was a DEAD language!!"

* * * * *

Well, reader, I am glad you are _not_ laughing at Mr. Rapid; for how
should anything _dead_ speak out so as to be understood? And indeed,
does not his definition suit the vexed feelings of some young gentlemen
attempting to read Latin without any interlinear translation? and who
inwardly, cursing both book and teacher, blast their souls "if they can
make any sense out of it." The ancients may yet speak in their own
languages to a few; but