"Thank you! thank you!" exclaimed Alec. "I see it all now as plain as
English."
"Stop, stop, my young bantam!" said Mr Cupples. "Don't think you're
going to break into my privacy and get off with the booty so cheaply.
Just you construe the whole sentence to me."
Alec did so tolerably well; for the passage was only an easy extract,
the class not having reached Homer yet. Mr Cupples put several
questions to him, which gave him more insight into Greek than a week's
work in the class would have done, and ended with a small lecture
suggested by the passage, drinking away at his toddy all the time. The
lecture and the toddy ended together. Turning his head aside, where it
lay back in the horse-hair chair, he said sleepily:
"Go away--I don't know your name.--Come and see me to-morrow night. I'm
drunk now."
Alec rose, made some attempt at thanks, received no syllable of reply,
and went out, closing the door behind him, and leaving Mr Cupples to
his dreams.
His countenance had not made much approximation to respectability
before the Monday. He therefore kept it as well as he could out of Mr
Fraser's sight, to whom he did not wish to give explanations to the
prejudice of any of his fellow-students.
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