thing stung him.
Finally he went to join Rendell and Lawrence in Belgium, and there,
with Memling and Bock and conversation, he forgot his woes. The exam
results came to them at Rochefort, rich in grottoes, that notable town
of the Ardennes. Rendell had taken a first, Martin a second, and
Lawrence a third. Martin had entertained fears of a third and Lawrence
of a fourth, so they agreed that things have been worse.

"Anyhow," said Martin, as they went in search of tea and _gateaux_,
"that's an end of those infernal classics." Which was both an error on
his part--for in Greats, as he later on discovered, one deals mainly
with translation--and a commentary on the plain man's attitude to the
poets and orators by the time that he has been taught all about them.

IV

The summer term was a joyous interlude. Martin and Lawrence had
nothing to do but play tennis or regard the world from a punt, and an
early summer encouraged these methods of killing time. Rendell was
cajoled by Petworth into entering for the Hertford scholarship, which
involved some attention to the Latin language. While Martin read
novels Rendell was perusing some of the worst poetry that the world has
ever produced, it being the habit of the examiners to select passages
from the frigid obscurity of Silver Latin.

"There's your classical education," shouted Lawrence contemptuously.
"Silius Italicus and drivel about Etna and its siphons."

Rendell had to admit that, taken as a whole, Latin literature made a
poor show.

"There's Lucretius and Catullus," he said.

"They're all right," said Lawrence. "But who else is there? Virgil,
the Victorian before his time. The cave scene, so refined and all
that. Better than old Arthur from the barge. Virgil the most blatant
pirate and lifter of literary goods that ever made a name. Virgil who
couldn't even translate the originals right and showed himself to be a
fool as well as a knave. If we're going to have thieves, let's have
them competent. Virgil! Ugh!"

Lawrence always spoke like this about Virgil: the subject gave him
eloquence, and the others had long ago ceased to argue with him on this
theme. To withstand his river of rhetoric was like trying to make a
match-box float up-stream.

"No, my lad," he continued, "you are making a distinct fool of yourself
by believing Mr Petworth's flattery. Not only is Latin literature rot,
but that rot will be more efficiently done by those intolerab