sections--even of his beloved Horace. He was tired of the stupidities of
the dull young men who were sent to him because they could not "keep up",
and he had long ceased to be surprised or interested by the remarks of
the clever ones who were sent to him because their education had not
prepared them for an English University. The dull ones could never be
made to understand anything, though Mr. Ambrose generally succeeded in
making them remember enough to matriculate, by dint of ceaseless
repetition and a system of _memoria technica_ which embraced most things
necessary to the salvation of dull youth. The clever ones, on the other
hand, generally lacked altogether the solid foundation of learning; they
could construe fluently but did not know a long syllable from a short
one; they had vague notions of elemental algebra and no notion at all of
arithmetic, but did very well in conic sections; they knew nothing of
prosody, but dabbled perpetually in English blank verse; altogether they
knew most of those things which they need not have known and they knew
none of those things thoroughly which they ought to have known. After
twenty years of experience Mr. Ambrose ascertained that it was easier to
teach a stupid boy than a clever one, but that he would prefer not to
teach at all.

Unfortunately the small tithes of a small country parish in Essex did not
furnish a sufficient income for his needs. He had been a Fellow of
Trinity College, Cambridge, within a few years of taking his degree,
wherein he had obtained high honours. But he had married and had found
himself obliged to accept the first living offered to him, to wit, the
vicarage of Billingsfield, whereof his college held the rectory and
received the great tithes. The entire income he obtained from his cure
never at any time exceeded three hundred and forty-seven pounds, and in
the year when it reached that high figure there had been an unusually
large number of marriages. It was not surprising that the vicar should