This would never do; it was contrary to all my ideas of discipline; if the officer has to blush before the private, or the master before the servant, nothing is left to hope for but discharge or death.

I hit upon the idea of teaching him French; and accordingly, from Lichfield, I became the distracted master, and he the scholar--how shall I say?
indefatigable, but uninspired.

His interest never flagged.

He would hear the same word twenty times with profound refreshment, mispronounce it in several different ways, and forget it again with magical celerity.

Say it happened to be _stirrup_.