City and town life -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
“Who did it?” Tembarom inquired softly. It might be a good idea to lead
him on.
“Horace. In spite of his genius, he sometimes makes you feel he was
rather a blackguard.”
“Horace!” For the moment T. Tembarom forgot himself. “I always heard he
was a sort of Y.M.C.A. old guy--old Horace Greeley. The Tribune was no
yellow journal when he had it.”
He was sorry he had spoken the next moment. Strangeways looked puzzled.
“The Tribune,” he hesitated. “The Roman Tribune?”
“No, New York. He started it--old Horace did. But perhaps we're not
talking of the same man.”
Strangeways hesitated again.
“No, I think we're not,” he answered politely.
“I've made a break,” thought Tembarom. “I ought to have kept my mouth
shut. I must try to switch him back.”
Strangeways was looking down at the back of the book he held in his
hand.
“This one was the Latin poet, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65 B. C. You
know him,” he said.
“Oh, that one!” exclaimed Tembarom, as if with an air of immense relief.
“What a fool I was to forget! I'm glad it's him. Will you go on reading
and let me hear some more? He's a winner from Winnersville--that Horace
is.”
Perhaps it was a sort of miracle, accomplished by his great desire to
help the right thing to happen, to stave off any shadow of the wrong
thing. Whatsoever the reason, Strangeways waited only a moment before
turning to his book again. It seemed to be a link in some chain slowly
forming itself to drag him back from his wanderings. And T. Tembarom,
lightly sweating as a frightened horse will, sat smoking another pipe
and listening intently to “Satires” and “Lampoons,” read aloud in the
Latin of 65 B. C.
“By gee!” he said faithfully, at intervals, when he saw on the reader's
face that the moment was ripe. “He knew it all--old Horace--didn't he?”
He had steered his charge back. Things were coming along the line to
him. He'd learned Latin at one of these big English schools. Boys always
learned Latin, the duke had told him. They just had to. Most of them
hated it like thunder, and they used to be caned when they didn't recite
it right. Perhaps if he went on he'd begin to remember the school. A
queer part of it was that he did not seem to notice that he was not
reading his own language.
He did not, in fact, seem to remember anything in particular, but went
on quite naturally for some minutes. He had replaced Horace on the shelf
and was on the point of taking down another volume when he paused, as if
recalling something else.
“Weren't we going to see the picture-gallery?” he inquired. “Isn't it
getting late? I should like to see the portraits.”
“No hurry,” answered T. Tembarom. “I was just waiting till you were
ready. But we'll go right away, if you like.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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