Quicksilver Part 52

The private tutor threw himself back in his seat in the study, vacated by the doctor, while Dexter had his lessons, placed his hands behind his head, and, after wrinkling his forehead in lines from his brow to right on the top, where the hair began, he stared hard at his pupil.

"I say again, sir, what am I to tell the doctor!"

"I don't know," said Dexter dolefully. Then, plucking up a little spirit: "I wrote out all my history questions, and did the parsing with a little help from Miss Grayson, and I did the sum you set me all by myself."

"Yes; but the Algebra, the Cla.s.sics, and the Euclid! Where are they?"

"There they are," said Dexter, pointing dismally to some books on the table.

"Yes, sir, there they are--on that table, when they ought to be in your head."

"But they won't go in my head, sir," cried Dexter desperately.

"Nonsense, sir! you will not let them, and I warn you plainly, that if we do not make better progress, I shall tell the doctor that I will not continue to take his payment for nothing."

"No; I say; don't do that," said Dexter piteously. "He wouldn't like it."

"I cannot help that, sir. I have my duty to perform. Anybody can do those childish history and grammatical questions; it is the cla.s.sical and mathematical lessons in which I wish you to excel. Now, once more.

No, no, you must not refer to the book. 'In any right-angled triangle, the square of the side--' Now, go on."

Dexter took up a slate and pencil, wrinkled up his forehead as nearly like the tutor's as he could, and slowly drew a triangle.

"Very good," said Mr Limpney. "Now, go on."

Dexter stared at his sketch, then helplessly at his instructor.

"I ought to write _ABC_ here, oughtn't I, sir?"

"Yes, of course. Go on."

Dexter hesitated, and then put a letter at each corner.

"Well, have it that way if you like," said Mr Limpney.

"I don't like it that way, sir," said Dexter. "I'll put it your way."

"No, no. Go on your way."

"But I haven't got any way, sir," said Dexter desperately.

"Nonsense, nonsense! Go on."

"Please, sir, I can't. I've tried and tried over and over again, but the angles all get mixed up with the sides, and it is all such a muddle.

I shall never learn Euclid. Is it any use?"

"Is it any use!" cried the tutor scornfully. "Look at me, sir. Has it been any use to me!"

Dexter looked at the face before him, and then right up the forehead, and wondered whether learning Euclid had made all the hair come off the top of his head.

"Well, go on."

"I can't, sir, please," sighed the boy. "I know it's something about squares, and _ABC_, and _BAC_, and _CAB_, and--but you produce the lines."

"But you do not produce them, sir," cried Mr Limpney angrily; "nor anything else! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir!"

"I am," said Dexter innocently. "I'm a dreadfully stupid boy, sir, and I don't think I've got any brains."

"Are you going through that forty-seventh problem this morning, sir?"

Dexter made a desperate attempt, floundered on a quarter of a minute, and broke down in half.

"Tut--tut--tut!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr Limpney. "I'm sure you have not looked at it since I was here."

"That I have, sir," cried Dexter, in a voice full of eager protest.

"Hours and hours, sir, I walked up and down the garden with it, and then I took the book up with me into my loft, and made a chalk triangle on the floor, and kept on saying it over and over, but as fast as I said it the words slipped out of my head again. I can't help it, sir, I am so stupid."

"Algebra!" said Mr Limpney, in a tone of angry disgust.

"Am I not to try and say the Euclid, sir?"

"Algebra!" cried Mr Limpney again, and he slapped the table with a thin book. "Now then, where are these simple equations?"

Dexter drew a half-sheet of foolscap paper from a folio, and rather shrinkingly placed it before his tutor, who took a pair of spectacles from his pocket, and placed them over his mild-looking eyes.

"Let me see," he said, referring to a note-book. "The questions I gave you were: 'A spent 2 s.h.i.+llings and 6 pence in oranges, and says that three of them cost as much under a s.h.i.+lling as nine of them cost over a s.h.i.+lling. How many did he buy?'"

Mr Limpney coughed, blew his nose loudly, as if it were a post-horn, and then went on--

"Secondly: 'Two coaches start at the same time for York and London, a distance of 200 miles, travelling one at nine and a half miles an hour, the other at nine and a quarter miles; where will they meet, and in what time from starting?'"

He gave his nose a finis.h.i.+ng touch with his handkerchief, closed his note-book, and turned to Dexter.

"Now then," he said. "Let us see."

He took the sheet of paper, looked at one side, turned it over and looked at the other, and then raised his eyes to Dexter's, which avoided his gaze directly.

"What is this?" he cried.

"The equations, sir," said Dexter humbly.

"Tut--tut--tut!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr Limpney. "Was there ever such a boy?

_plus_ where it ought to be _minus_, and--why, what's this!"

"This, sir?" said Dexter. "Half-crowns."

"But it was to be oranges. How many did he buy? and here you say he bought ninety-seven half-crowns. I don't know how you arrived at it, or what you mean. A man does not go to a shop to buy half-crowns. He spent half a crown in oranges."

"Yes, sir."