But Vassily Lukitch was thinking of nothing but the necessity of learning the grammar
lesson for the teacher, who was coming at two.
So, Delia said she must give music
lessons to keep the chafing dish bubbling.
Wharton had even asked him to pay him the two shillings which the
lesson cost once a week rather than once a month, since it made things less complicated.
"I say, Magsie," said Tom at last, shutting his books and putting them away with the energy and decision of a perfect master in the art of leaving off, "I've done my
lessons now.
"Queer
lessons, I fancy; and what have you learned from this remarkable mixture, I should like to know?"
He won't ask till the end of the
lessons, and then I will make out the bill."
"Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things, in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my
lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot BEAR to be subjected to systematic arrangements.
We are very good friends now, and I've begun to take
lessons. I really couldn't help it, and it all came about in such a droll way that I must tell you.
One of them is prettier than the other; but this hatter (the one that takes the private
lessons) is really une file prodigieuse.
I proceeded to give my
lesson; it was a "Composition," i.e., I dictated certain general questions, of which the pupils were to compose the answers from memory, access to books being forbidden.
For weeks after one of these auctions, having rendered his study uninhabitable, he would live about in the fifth-form room and hall, doing his verses on old letter-backs and odd scraps of paper, and learning his
lessons no one knew how.
The
lessons taught me in this respect took such a hold upon me that at the present time, when I am at home, no matter how busy I am, I always make it a rule to read a chapter or a portion of a chapter in the morning, before beginning the work of the day.