y giving him a long sentence to learn by heart, thoroughly; and
when Bob had done this, parsed each word with him, so that he
perfectly understood its meaning. Then he made the lad say it after
him a score of times, correcting his accent and inflection; and
when he was satisfied with this, began to construct fresh sentences
out of the original one, again making Bob repeat them, and form
fresh ones himself.

Thus, by the time the first lesson was finished the lad, to his
surprise, found himself able, without difficulty, to frame
sentences from the words he had learned. Then the professor wrote
down thirty nouns and verbs in common use.

"You will learn them this evening," he said, "and in the morning we
shall be able to make up a number of sentences out of them and, by
the end of a week, you will see we shall begin to talk to each
other. After that, it will be easy. Thirty fresh words, every day,
will be ample. In a month you will know seven or eight hundred; and
seven or eight hundred are enough for a man to talk with, on common
occasions."

"He is first rate," Bob reported to his sister, as they sat down to
dinner, at one o'clock. "You would hardly believe that I can say a
dozen little sentences, already; and can understand him, when he
says them. He says, in a week, we shall be able to get to talk
together.

"I wonder they don't teach Latin like that. Why, I shall know in
two or three months as much Spanish--and more, ever so much
more--than I do Latin, after grinding away at it for the last seven
or eight years."

"Well, that is satisfactory. I only hope the other will turn out as
well."

As Mrs. O'Halloran sat that evening, with her work in her hand, on
the terrace; with her husband, smoking a cigar, beside her. She
paused, several times, as she heard a burst of laughter.

"That doesn't sound like master and pupil," she said, sharply,
after an unusually loud laugh from below.

"More the pity, Carrie. Why on earth shouldn't a master be capable
of a joke? Do you think one does not learn all the faster, when the
lecture is pleasant? I know I would, myself. I never could see why
a man should look as if he was going to an execution, when he wants
to instil knowledge."

"But it is not usual, Gerald," Carrie remonstrated, no other
argument occurring to her.

"But that doesn't prove that it's wrong. Why a boy should be driven
worse than a donkey, and thrashed until his life is a burden to
him, and he hates h