year, he said. And the great names of Ovid, lord of the elves and gnomes, the Bacchic piper of Amores, or of Lucretius, full of the rhythm of tides. Nox est perpetua.
“Huh?” drawled Mr. Leonard, vacantly beginning to laugh. He was fingermarked with chalk from chin to crotch. Stephen (“Pap”) Rheinhart leaned forward gently and fleshed his penpoint in Eugene Gant’s left rump. Eugene grunted painfully.
“Why, no,” said Mr. Leonard, stroking his chin. “A different sort of Latin.”
“What sort?” Tom Davis insisted. “Harder than Cicero?”
“Well,” said Mr. Leonard, dubiously, “different. A little beyond you at present.”
“—est perpetua. Una dormienda. Luna dies et nox.”
“Is Latin poetry hard to read?” Eugene said.
“Well,” said Mr. Leonard, shaking his head. “It’s not easy. Horace—” he began carefully.
“He wrote Odes and Epodes,” said Tom Davis. “What is an Epode, Mr. Leonard?”
“Why,” said Mr. Leonard reflectively, “it’s a form of poetry.”
“Hell!” said “Pap” Rheinhart in a rude whisper to Eugene. “I knew that before I paid tuition.”
Smiling lusciously, and stroking himself with gentle fingers, Mr. Leonard turned back to the lesson.
“Now let me see,” he began.
“Who was Catullus?” Eugene shouted violently. Like a flung spear in his brain, the name.
“He was a poet,” Mr. Leonard answered thoughtlessly, quickly, startled. He regretted.
“What sort of poetry did he write?” asked Eugene.
There was no answer.
“Was it like Horace?”
“No-o,” said Mr. Leonard reflectively. “It wasn’t exactly like Horace.”
“What was it like?” said Tom Davis. “Like your granny’s gut,” “Pap” Rheinhart toughly whispered.
“Why—he wrote on topics of general interest in his day,” said Mr. Leonard easily.
