"I do not expect," said Forester, "that you will do very well for the
first few days. It will take some time to get this system under full
operation. I presume that you will come to me as many as ten times the
first day."
"O, no," said Marco, "I don't mean to come to you once."
"You will, - I have no doubt. What shall I say to you if you do? Will
it be a good plan for me to answer your question?"
"Why, no," said Marco, "I suppose not."
"And yet, if I refuse to answer, it will not be very pleasant to you.
It will put you out of humor."
"No," said Marco.
"I will have one invariable answer to give you," said Forester. "It
shall be this, - Act according to your own judgment. That will be a
little more civil than to take no notice of your question at all,
and yet it will preserve our principle, - that I am to give you no
assistance except in my half-hour. Then, besides, I will keep an
account of the number of questions you ask me, and see if they do not
amount to ten."
By this time Forester's half-hour was out, and Marco went to his desk.
"There's one thing," said Marco, "before I begin: - may I have the
window open?"
"Act according to your own judgment," said Forester, "and there is one
question asked." So Forester made one mark upon a paper which he had
upon the table.
"But, cousin Forester, it is not right to count that, for I had not
begun."
Forester made no reply, but began arranging his note-books, as if he
was about commencing his own studies. Marco looked at him a moment,
and then he rose and gently opened the window and began his work.
[Illustration: MARCO'S DESK.]
Marco was but little accustomed to solitary study, and, after
performing one of the examples which Forester had given him, he
thought he was tired, and he began to look out the window and to play
with his pencil. He would lay his pencil upon the upper side of
his slate, and let it roll down. As the pencil was not round, but
polygonal in its form, it made a curious clicking sound in rolling
down, which amused Marco, though it disturbed and troubled Forester.
Whatever may have been the nice peculiarities in the delicate
mechanism of Forester's ear, and of the nerves connected with it,
compared with that of Marco's, by which the same sound produced a
sensation of pleasure in one ear, while it gave only pain in the
other, it would require a very profound philosopher to explain. But
the effect was certain. Forester, however, did not speak, but let
Marco roll his pencil down the slate as long as he pleased.
This was not long, however; Marco soon grew tired of it, and then
began to look out the window. There was a little staple in the window
sill, placed there as a means of fastening the blind. Marco pushed the
point of his pencil into this staple, in order to see if it would go
through. It did go through in an instant, and slipping through his
fingers, it fell out of the window.
"Dear me! there goes my pencil. My pencil has dropped out of the
window, cousin Forester; shall I go out and get it?"
"Act according to your own judgment," said Forester. At the same time
he was saying this, he made another mark upon his paper.
"Why, you ought not to count that, cousin Forester," said Marco, "for
I don't know whether you'd wish me to go and get that pencil, or take
another out of my desk."
"Act according to your own judgment," replied Forester.
Marco looked perplexed and troubled. In fact, he was a little
displeased to find that Forester would not answer him. He thought
that, it was an unforeseen emergency, which Forester ought to have
considered an exception to his rule. But he was obliged to decide the
question for himself, and he concluded to go out for his pencil. It
took him some time to find it in the grass, and after he had found it,
he stopped for some time longer, to watch some ants which were passing
in and out, at the entrance to their nest, each one bringing up a
grain of sand in his forceps. When Marco came in, he found that his
hour for arithmetic was so nearly expired, that he should not have
time to finish another sum, if he should begin it; so he put his
arithmetical apparatus away, and took out his writing-book.
Marco went through the whole forenoon pretty much in the same way. He
spent a large part of his time in looking out of the window and about
the room. He went out at the time for the recess, but he stayed out
twenty minutes instead of ten. He was astonished, when he came in, to
see how rapidly the time had passed. He then took down a volume of the
Encyclopedia, and read until twelve o'clock, and then, leaving the
volume of the Encyclopedia and his writing-book on his desk, he told
Forester that the study hours were over, and went away.
The next morning, at nine, Forester asked him how he had got along the
day before. Marco had the frankness to admit that he did not get along
very well.
"Still," said Forester, "I am well satisfied on the whole. You did
very well for a first experiment. In the first place, you did really
make some effort to carry out my plan. You kept the reckoning of the
hours, and changed your studies at the appointed time. You did not
speak to me more than three or four times, and then you acquiesced
pretty good-naturedly in my refusing to help you.
