"My c-a-p," timidly said the "new fellow," casting troubled looks round
him.

"Five hundred lines for all the class!" shouted in a furious voice
stopped, like the Quos ego*, a fresh outburst. "Silence!" continued the
master indignantly, wiping his brow with his handkerchief, which he
had just taken from his cap. "As to you, 'new boy,' you will conjugate
'ridiculus sum'** twenty times."

Then, in a gentler tone, "Come, you'll find your cap again; it hasn't
been stolen."

*A quotation from the Aeneid signifying a threat.

**I am ridiculous.

Quiet was restored. Heads bent over desks, and the "new fellow" remained
for two hours in an exemplary attitude, although from time to time some
paper pellet flipped from the tip of a pen came bang in his face. But he
wiped his face with one hand and continued motionless, his eyes lowered.

In the evening, at preparation, he pulled out his pens from his desk,
arranged his small belongings, and carefully ruled his paper. We saw him
working conscientiously, looking up every word in the dictionary, and
taking the greatest pains. Thanks, no doubt, to the willingness he
showed, he had not to go down to the class below. But though he knew his
rules passably, he had little finish in composition. It was the cure
of his village who had taught him his first Latin; his parents, from
motives of economy, having sent him to school as late as possible.