The more he talked the more enthusiastic he grew as he developed his own views; until seeing that he was not understood or that he was merely laughed at, he would end his discourse with a merry laugh at himself, or a shy apology for having talked so much.

But the vicar assured his wife that the boy's Greek and Latin verses were something very extraordinary indeed, and much better than his own in his best days.

For John was passionately fond of the classics and did not propose to acquire any more mathematical knowledge than was strictly necessary for his matriculation and "little-go." He meant to be a famous scholar and he meant to get a fellowship at his college in order to be perfectly independent and to help his father.
John was a constant source of wonder to his companion the Honourable Cornelius Angleside, who remembered to have seen fellows of that sort at Eton but had never got near enough to them to know what they were really like.

Cornelius had a vague idea that there was some trick about appearing to know so much and that those reading chaps were awful humbugs.

How the trick was performed he did not venture to explain, but he was as firmly persuaded that it was managed by some species of conjuring as that Messrs.