“If you went in for the Tripos now, you would wipe the floor with everybody.—Cambridge! That’s a wonderful idea.” He stuck his hands behind him in the waistband of his trousers and strode about for a moment or two, his eyes illuminated. “A splendid notion! You can begin where I leave off. I’ll work up all the stuff that’s gone, and put it into your hands, and you’ll continue my life’s work. By God! you’ll consummate it. Cambridge! The very thing! Damn China! Any fool can teach young China the Binomial Theorem and Trigonometry. But there’s only one Quong Ho, the pupil and intellectual heir of John Baltazar, in the world. Yes. You’ll go to Cambridge, and by the Lord Harry! won’t there be fluttering of dovecotes!” He stopped suddenly in his enthusiastic outburst and his brow darkened. “Wait a bit. Perhaps you don’t realize that Cambridge is a matter of at least three years?” “If it were twenty years it would matter little,” said Quong Ho. “There’s Latin and Greek—compulsory. I was forgetting.” “Greek,” replied Quong Ho, “I presume I could readily acquire. As for Latin I think I am acquainted with the grammar and I have already read the interesting Commentaries of Julius Cæsar on the Gallic War.” Baltazar sank into a chair. “Latin! You’ve learned Latin? When? How?” Quong Ho explained apologetically that the simultaneous excitation of mind over the quotation at the head of the papers of _The Rambler_, and the discovery in the lowest rubbish shelf in the library of an old Latin grammar and a copy of the _De Bello Gallico_, had inaugurated his study of the Latin tongue. He had procured, not without difficulty, owing to the limited intelligence of the young lady in charge, a Latin dictionary, through the miniature bookshop in Water-End. “Well, I’m damned!” said Baltazar. “I’m just damned. And now, do you mind telling me why you never mentioned a word of it to me?” He looked fierce and angry. Quong Ho replied in his own tongue. How could the inconsiderable worm that was his illustrious lordship’s servant, presume to importune him with his inferior and unauthorized pursuits? “I could have taught you twice as much in half the time,” said Baltazar. Quong Ho professed regret. He had also bought, he said, the works of the poets Virgil and Horace, but had found peculiar difficulty in translating them. The new conception of Quong Ho as an independent purchaser of commodities set Baltazar’s mind on a different track. He had paid Quong Ho wages—or rather Quong Ho had paid himself. He started up from his chair. “Good Lord! I’ve only just thought of it. All the money you must have had on the Farm is lost. How much was it?” “A trifling sum—a pound or two. It does not matter,” replied Quong Ho. “But you’ve been drawing a salary all the time. What’s become of it? You couldn’t possibly have spent it all.” “I have invested it in British War Loan,” said Quong Ho.