Mark replied that the boy had left his form now, but that he heard he was doing well, and had begun to acquire the graceful art of verse-making. 'Verse-making? ay, ay; is he indeed? You know, Ashburn, I often think it's a good thing there are none of the old Romans alive now. They weren't a yumorous nation, taken as a whole; but I fancy some of our prize Latin verses would set the stiffest of 'em sniggering. And we laugh at "Baboo English," as they call it! But you tell Langton from me, when you see him, that if he likes to try his hand at a set of elegiacs on a poor old cat of mine that died the other day, I'll look 'em over if he brings them to me after school some day, and if they're what I consider worthy of the deceased's many virtues, I'll find some way of rewarding him. She was a black Persian and her name was "Jinks," but he'll find it Latinise well as "Jinxia," tell him. And now I think of it,' he added, 'I never congratulated you on the effort of _your_ muse. It's not often I read these things now, but I took your book up, and--maybe I'm too candid in telling you so--but it fairly surprised me. I'd no idea you had it in you.' Mark found it difficult to hit the right expression of countenance at such a compliment, but he did it. 'There are some very fine things in that book, sir,' continued Mr. Shelford, 'some very noble words; remarkable for so young a man as you must be. You have lived, Ashburn, it's easy to see that!' 'Oh, well,' said Mark, 'I--I've knocked about, you know.' 'Ah, and you've knocked something into you, too, which is more to the purpose. I'd like to know now when you found time to construct your theories of life and conduct.' Mark began to find this embarrassing; he said he had hit upon them at odd times ('_very_ odd times,' he could not help remembering), and shifted his ground a little uneasily, but he was held fast by the buttonhole. 'They're remarkably sound and striking, I must say that, and your story is interesting, too. I found myself looking at the end, sir, ha, ha! to see what became of your characters. Ah, I _knew_ there was something I wanted to ask you. There's a heading you've got for one of your chapters, a quotation from some Latin author, which I can't place to my satisfaction; I mean that one beginning "_Non terret principes_."' 'Oh, _that_ one?' repeated Mark blankly. 'Yes, it reads to me like later Latin; where did you take it from? One of the Fathers?' 'One of them, I forget which,' said Mark quickly, wishing he had cut the quotations out. 'That _aegritudo_, now, "aegritudo superveniens," you know--how do you understand that?' Mark had never troubled himself to understand it at all, so he stared at his interrogator in rather a lost way. 'I mean, do you take it as of the mind or body (that's what made me fancy it must be later Latin). And then there's the _correxit_?'