Next morning I awoke at seven o’clock, and saw a tall figure very busy at my drawers. “Who is that?” I exclaimed.

“It’s me,” replied a voice which I recognised as Sir John Ellesmere’s.

_Ellesmere._ I say “It’s me” advisedly; and am prepared to maintain that it is good grammar to say so.

What am I about? Why, I am rectifying my frontiers in the article of cricket-balls. Little Tommy Jessom has got a whole holiday, and has honoured us by a visit. A quarter to seven is not a strictly fashionable hour for making a morning call upon a respectable family; but boys are privileged beings. The minute but persevering Tommy insists upon our having a game at cricket, and I am going to give him an innings. I saw you put away a well-greased ball in one of these drawers the other day.

Hallo! emerald studs! and very pretty ones too. What young woman has been foolish enough to see anything in your lengthy face, Sandy, and to give you these studs? I see I must “execute the provisions of a treaty” in regard to these studs--a treaty to be signed by the small Tommy and me, which being rightly interpreted, will be found to provide that, under pain of being thrashed himself, he shall come into your room, carry off the studs, and present them to the other high contracting party. You shall then complain to me of Tommy; and between us we will execute the provisions of another treaty, and carry off Master Tommy’s bat and stumps. We want stumps sadly, and should not be the worse for a spare bat. Thus everything will be arranged satisfactorily, according to the latest and best construction put upon international law.

So saying, Sir John, having, to use his own phrase, “rectified his frontiers” by seizing upon my pet cricket-ball, strode out of the room to play with Tommy Jessom.

An hour or two after breakfast we all went to the summer-house to have another reading of Realmah.

_Ellesmere._ Tommy, I have a serious word to say to you. You are an incomplete, imperfect boy; in fact, a mere eidolon, or spectrum, or larva, of a boy. The perfect boy has always in his pockets a ball of string, a lump of beeswax, thirty-seven marbles, two alley-taws, and a knife with six blades, a gimlet, a punch, a corkscrew, and a little saw. I regret to say that you were found to be deficient in all these articles this morning. Proceed at once to Mother Childman’s in the town, and buy them forthwith. (Here Ellesmere gave the boy some money.) Away! Avaunt! “_Quo usque tandem abutêre, Caitlina, patientiâ nostrâ!_” Vanish.

[_Exit Little Tommy._

The boy would be bored to death by our reading and our talk. By the way, he has made me very unhappy this morning.

_Milverton._ Why, he is the best of little boys--a perfect boy, notwithstanding the absence of beeswax and string.

_Ellesmere._ I am in a sort of a way his godfather. Poor S----, my cousin, was his godfather; and now that S---- is dead, I consider that I take his place. Consequently, I thought it my duty, in the intervals of cricket, to talk to him a little about his lessons. It is the same sad story as it was in our time. Hexas and pens for to-day: alcaics and Latin theme for Monday; in fact, a painful and laborious gathering together of useless rubbish.

_Johnson._ What are hexas and pens, Sir John?

_Ellesmere._ You have not been brought up, Sandy, in the groves of Academus, or you would know that hexas and pens are the short for hexameters and pentameters.

Hereupon ensued a conversation of the most animated description. I could not have thought that any people would have been so excited about the question of boys making Latin verses. The most uncomplimentary speeches passed between Mr. Cranmer and Sir John, Mr. Cranmer insinuating that Sir John would have been a much more polished individual if he had made more Latin verses in his boyhood, and Sir John insinuating that Mr. Cranmer would not have been quite so much given to routine, and so narrow-minded, if he had made fewer Latin verses.

Mr. Milverton--an unusual thing for him--rushed in to aid Sir John; upon which Sir Arthur came down upon _him_, not in his accustomed dignified way, but with great warmth and vehemence, declaring that, if these new ideas were to prevail, all elegance and scholarship in literature would pass away. Mr. Mauleverer sneered a little at both parties, but rather inclined to Mr. Cranmer’s view of the question, from his hatred of anything new. For some time they all talked at once, and I cannot give any account of it.

When the fray had a little subsided, Sir Arthur and Sir John were left in possession of the field. Sir John demanded of Sir Arthur a distinct enumeration of the advantages to be gained in education from the making of Latin and Greek verses. Sir Arthur did not hesitate to accept the challenge, and enumerated these advantages one by one. Sir John pointed out the fallacy in each case, dwelt upon the loss of time, the loss of real knowledge, and the cumbering the mind with what is useless, occasioned by the present system of classical education. I thought he had much the best of the argument, though Sir Arthur was very eloquent and very adroit.

At length the conversation was broken off, as they thought that Tommy Jessom would soon be back upon us again; and Mr. Milverton commenced reading another portion of Realmah.

The Story of Realmah.