that he was not really argumentative, but merely enthusiastic. It was not
necessary to agree with him, and there was small use in contradicting
him. The more he talked the more enthusiastic he grew as he developed his
own views; until seeing that he was not understood or that he was merely
laughed at, he would end his discourse with a merry laugh at himself, or
a shy apology for having talked so much. But the vicar assured his wife
that the boy's Greek and Latin verses were something very extraordinary
indeed, and much better than his own in his best days. For John was
passionately fond of the classics and did not propose to acquire any more
mathematical knowledge than was strictly necessary for his matriculation
and "little-go." He meant to be a famous scholar and he meant to get a
fellowship at his college in order to be perfectly independent and to
help his father.

John was a constant source of wonder to his companion the Honourable
Cornelius Angleside, who remembered to have seen fellows of that sort at
Eton but had never got near enough to them to know what they were really
like. Cornelius had a vague idea that there was some trick about
appearing to know so much and that those reading chaps were awful
humbugs. How the trick was performed he did not venture to explain, but
he was as firmly persuaded that it was managed by some species of
conjuring as that Messrs. Maskelyne and Cook performed their wonders by
sleight of hand. That one human brain should actually contain the amount
of knowledge John Short appeared to possess was not credible to the
Honourable Cornelius, and the latter spent more of his time in trying to
discover how John "did it" than in trying to "do it" himself.
Nevertheless, young Angleside liked Short after his own fashion, and
Short did not dislike Angleside. John's father had given him to
understand that as a general rule persons of wealth and good birth were a
set of overbearing, purse-proud bullies, who considered men of genius to