aptain, holding out
his hand, nevertheless, for the box.

"Now, father, don't be absurd," interrupted Hardy, snatching the
box away from him. "You might as well give him a glass of
absinthe. He is church-warden at home and can't smoke anything
but a long clay."

"I'm very sorry I haven't one here, but I can send out in a
minute." And Tom was making for the door to shout for Wiggins.

"No, don't call. I'll fetch some from my rooms."

When Hardy left the room, Tom squeezed away at his lemon, and was
preparing himself for a speech to Captain Hardy full of
confession and gratitude. But the Captain was before him, and led
the conversation into a most unexpected channel.

"I suppose, now, Mr. Brown," he began, "you don't find any
difficulty in construing your Thucydides?"

"Indeed, I do, sir," said Tom, laughing. "I find him a very tough
old customer, except in the simplest narrative."

"For my part," said the Captain, "I can't get on at all, I find,
without a translation. But you see, sir, I had none of the
advantages which you young men have up here. In fact, Mr. Brown,
I didn't begin Greek till Jack was nearly ten years old." The
Captain in his secret heart was prouder of his partial victory
over the Greek tongue in his old age, than of his undisputed
triumphs over the French in his youth, and was not averse to
talking of it.

"I wonder that you ever began it at all, sir," said Tom.

"You wouldn't wonder if you knew how an uneducated man like me
feels, when he comes to a place like Oxford."

"Uneducated, sir!" said Tom. "Why your education has been worth
twice as much, I'm sure, as any we get here."

"No, sir; we never learnt anything in the navy when I was a
youngster, except a little rule-of-thumb mathematics. One picked
up a sort of smattering of a language or two knocking about the
world, but no grammatical knowledge, nothing scientific. If a boy
doesn't get a method, he is beating to windward in a crank craft
all his life. He hasn't got any regular place to stow away what
he gets into his brains, and so it lies tumbling about in the
hold, and he loses it, or it gets damaged and is never ready for
use. You see what I mean, Mr. Brown?"

"Yes, sir. But I'm afraid we don't all of us get much method up
here. Do you really enjoy reading Thucydides now, Captain Hardy?"

"Indeed I do, sir, very much," said the captain. "There's a great
deal in his history to interest an old sailor, you know. I dare
say, now