So we have burst at times,
weeping and rejoicing, upon startled wayfarers. Usually I took the part
of that distinguished general Xenophen--and please note the quantity of
the o. I have all my classical names like that,--Socrates rhymes with
Bates for me, and except when the bleak eye of some scholar warns me of
his standards of judgment, I use those dear old mispronunciations still.
The little splash into Latin made during my days as a chemist washed off
nothing of the habit. Well,--if I met those great gentlemen of the past
with their accents carelessly adjusted I did at least meet them alive,
as an equal, and in a living tongue. Altogether my school might easily
have been worse for me, and among other good things it gave me a friend
who has lasted my life out.
This was Ewart, who is now a monumental artist at Woking, after many
vicissitudes. Dear chap, how he did stick out of his clothes to be sure!
He was a longlimbed lout, ridiculously tall beside my more youth full
compactness, and, except that there was no black moustache under his
nose blob, he had the same round knobby face as he has to-day, the same
bright and active hazel brown eyes, the stare, the meditative moment,
the insinuating reply.
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