t up. Well, I will certainly look you up some
books on history and some travels, and will send you some of Marryat's
stories. I suppose you do not care for schoolbooks; I have got a
barrow-load that I shall never want again."

"Oh yes, sir," Harry said eagerly, "I think I should like those best of
all. Have you a Virgil, sir? I do like Virgil, and all that story about
the siege of Troy. I only had it for a fortnight. Father bought it for
me, and then one of the little ones managed somehow to take it out and
lose it; she ran out with it for a bit of fun, and we suppose sat down
on a doorstep and forgot it."

"But, bless me," Frank exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that you read
Virgil in Latin! You are a rum fellow. How on earth did you learn it?"

"I have taught myself, sir," Harry said. "Father is awfully good, and
often picks up books for me at old bookstalls. Of course sometimes he
gets things I can't make out. But he got twelve once for a shilling, and
there was a Latin Grammar and Dictionary among them; and when I had
learned the Grammar, it was very easy with the Dictionary to make out
the sense of some of the Latin books. But of course I often come across
things that I don't understand. I think sometimes if some one would
explain them to me once or twice, so that I could really understand how
the rules in the Grammar are applied, I could get on faster."

"Well, you are a rum fellow!" Frank exclaimed again. "I wish I liked
learning as you do, for though I am in the Sixth at Westminster, I own
that I look upon the classics as a nuisance. Well, now, look here; I
have got an hour at present with nothing special to do, so if you like
we will have a go at it together. What have you got here?" and he walked
across to a shelf on which were a number of books. "Oh! here is a Caesar;
suppose we take that; it's easy enough generally, but there are some
stiffish bits now and then. Let's start off from the beginning, and
perhaps I may be able to make things clear for you a bit."

In spite of Mrs. Holl's protestations that Harry ought not to trouble
the gentleman, the two lads were soon deep in their Caesar. Frank found,
to his surprise, that the cripple boy had a wonderful knack of grasping
the sense of passages, but that never having been regularly taught to
construe, he was unable to apply the rules of grammar which he had
learned. Frank taught him how to do this, how to take a sentence to
pieces, how to parse it word by