More
and more frequently he became the object of blame or ridicule instead of
praise. By and by Lector Booklund found it hard to ask him a question or
give him a direction without open display of irritation. It was evident
that he felt disappointed in Keith, and he did not hesitate to show it.

Many causes combined to produce the slump in Keith's aspirations that in
its turn produced the changed attitude of the teacher. The latter's
impatience had probably as much to do with it as anything else, while
his splenetic manners and speech intimidated the boy's already
overwrought sensitiveness. The subjects taught and the form of the
teachings did their share, too. Grammar and rules and dry data seemed to
play a greater part than ever. In Latin, for instance, they were reading
Ovid's "_Metamorphoses_" and the colourful old legends might easily have
been used to arouse the boy's interest, if attention had merely been
concentrated on the stories told and the life revealed by them. But the
teacher was first and last a grammarian, and he would wax frantically
enthusiastic over some subtle syntactic distinction which left Keith
peevishly indifferent. And Lector Booklund was positively jealous on
behalf of his own subject, so that once he flung a bitingly sarcastic
remark at the boy because his attention had flared up at the quoting of
a phrase in English.

Keith's progress in English showed that he was still capable of both
interest and effort. This language was quite new to him, and the class
had it only one hour a week. But the man who taught it had advanced
ideas for his day, and instead of boring the boys with a lot of abstract
rules relating to a wholly unknown tongue, he let them start right in on
one of the English prose classics. They were told to pick out the
meaning of the principal words in advance, and the pronunciation was
explained as they took turns at reading aloud. All the time the teacher
kept the principal part of their attention focused on the story
gradually revealed. During that one hour a week Keith's mind never
wandered. But it was the only rift in the scholastic fog that kept him
in a state of constant boredom.

In the meantime things were happening at home that did not help the
situation.

XIII

He had moved into the parlour at last. It was almost his own room. An
old piece of furniture, half wardrobe and half dresser, standing in the
vestibule outside the parlour, had been turned over to him