"I’ll ask him—we live in the same house;" and the handsome one came and
sat down beside me. There was something they did n’t understand in
making out the cards, and the first thing I knew, they were all gathered
around me examining mine. I felt quite important. But the next minute
I felt equally cheap.
The cards that had been given us by the young man with the book had to
be filled out with one’s name and address and religion. When the
good-looking one (whose name I ’ve since found out is Berrisford) came
to it, he began to giggle, and after he had written on it he showed it
to the man next to him, who burst out laughing, and passed it on to the
others. They all laughed as soon as they saw it, and I was just about
to hold out my hand to take it, when the young instructor closed his
book, and said in a rather tired, dry tone,—
"By the way, unless you actually happen to be Buddhists or Hindus or
Mohammedans, or followers of Confucius, kindly refrain from saying so on
the card; only four men have indulged in that particular jest this
morning, which, in comparison with former years, is really very few. I
begin to feel encouraged; pray don’t depress me."
I don’t know what Berrisford had written, but he got very red while the
instructor was speaking, and crumpled the card into a little lump which
he afterward slipped into his pocket. The others pretended to be deeply
absorbed in their writing just then; but one of them snorted
hysterically.
If anything like that had happened to me, I think I should have expired
with mortification; but Berrisford after a minute or two did n’t seem to
mind it at all. I almost think it encouraged him to do something even
more idiotic.
There are two large, fine statues standing in the front corners of the
room. One of them is a Greek athlete in the act of hurling something
not unlike a pancake, and is called, I believe, The Discus Thrower. (We
have a little one in the library at home.) The other is a venerable old
man in flowing robes—probably Homer or Sophocles or some such person.
Well, we had all gone up to the desk with our cards. Berrisford was
first, and just as he got there he stopped (without giving his cards to
the little man who reached out for them), and looked inquiringly from
statue to statue. Berrisford has a beautiful, silly face with big,
innocent eyes, and when he talks his manner is graceful—almost timid;
you can’t help liking it. I could see that he impressed the instructors
just the way he did mamma and me the day we saw him with his mother. He
looked at the statues a moment, and then said to the little man,—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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