Now tell me the date of the accession of Edward the Sixth." No returns.
"Ah! I thought so: we must not be so discursive.

We'll learn the dates of the Grecian History, as being an effort of memory, you not having read it yet." But this plan was rather worse than the other; for one morning, Sam having innocently asked, at half-past eleven, what the battle of Thermopylae was, Mrs.Buckley coming in, at one, to call them to lunch, found the Doctor, who had begun the account of that glorious fight in English, and then gone on to German, walking up and down the room in a state of excitement, reciting to Sam, who did not know delta from psi, the soul-moving account of it from Herodotus in good sonorous Greek.
She asked, laughing, "What language are you talking now, my dear Doctor ?" "Greek, madam, Greek! and the very best of Greek!" "And what does Sam think of it?
I should like you to learn Greek, my boy, if you can." "I thought he was singing, mother," said Sam; but after that the lad used to sit delighted, by the river side, when they were fishing, while the Doctor, with his musical voice, repeated some melodious ode of Pindar's.
And so the intellectual education proceeded, with more or less energy; and meanwhile the physical and moral part was not forgotten, though the two latter, like the former, were not very closely attended to, and left a good deal to Providence.

(And, having done your best for a boy, in what better hands can you leave him ?) But the Major, as an old soldier, had gained a certain faith in the usefulness of physical training; so, when Sam was about twelve, you might have seen him any afternoon on the lawn, with his father, the Major, patiently teaching him singlestick, and Sam as patiently learning, until the boy came to be so marvellously active on his legs, and to show such rapidity of eye and hand, that the Major, on one occasion, having received a more than usually agonizing cut on the forearm, remarked that he thought he was not quite so active on his pins as formerly, and that he must hand the boy over to the Doctor.
"Doctor," said he that day, "I have taught my boy ordinary sword play till, by Jove, sir, he is getting quicker than I am.

I wish you would take him in hand and give him a little fencing." "Who told you I could fence ?" said the Doctor.
"Why, I don't know; no one, I think.

I have judged, I fancy, more by seeing you flourish your walking-stick than anything else.