He met the Professor’s questions squarely, his eyes were resolute, like his voice.
“Oh, you did.”
St. Peter stood his spade against the wall. He had been digging around his red-fruited thorn-trees.
“Can you repeat any of it?”
The boy began: “ Infandum, jubes renovare dolorem ,” and steadily continued for fifty lines or more, until St. Peter held up a checking hand.
“Excellent. Your priest was a thorough Latinist. You have a good pronunciation and good intonation. Was the Father by any chance a Frenchman?”
“Yes, sir. He was a missionary priest, from Belgium.”
“Did you learn any French from him?”
“No, sir. He wanted to practise his Spanish.”
“You speak Spanish?”
“Not very well, Mexican Spanish.”
The Professor tried him out in Spanish and told him he thought he knew enough to get credit for a modern language. “And what are your deficiencies?”
“I’ve never had any mathematics or science, and I write a very bad hand.”
“That’s not unusual,” St. Peter told him. “But, by the way, how did you happen to come to me instead of to the registrar?”