"I'm an Oxford man," answered the 'Windy Duke,' "classical tripos--if
you know what that means."
"I do," answered Hamilton, "but why--" and he stopped.
"You were going to ask me why I prefer to wander afield rather than be
'cribbed and confined' within narrow walls. I am but one of many, an
educated man without any knowledge of how to use his learning. Do you
care for Greek? There are some clever scenes from Aristophanes that I
can give you, or if you have a taste for satire I yield second place to
none in my interpretation of Juvenal. On the pre-Cadmean alphabets I
am--in my humble way--quite an authority. But these magnificent
talents," he added with a self-depreciatory smile, "do not enable me to
run a business as successfully as a Greek fruit peddler or a Russian Jew
vender of old clothes."
"You could teach," suggested Hamilton.
"Only my friends," replied the scholar. "To teach requires pedagogy and
numerous devices for improving the youthful mind. I do not greatly
admire the youthful mind and it bores me. I am informed that I also bore
it. Hence I prefer rather to wander than to teach. I do not claim
originality in this role; there have been 'scholar gypsies' before this.
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