The corners of Hardy’s room were covered with sheets of paper of
different sizes, pasted against the wall in groups. In the line of
sight, from about the height of four to six feet, there was scarcely
an inch of the original paper visible, and round each centre group
there were outlying patches and streamers, stretching towards floor or
ceiling, or away nearly to the bookcases or fireplace.
“Well, don’t you think it a great improvement on the old paper?” said
Hardy. “I shall be out of rooms next term, and it will be a hint to the
College that the rooms want papering. You’re no judge of such matters,
or I should ask you whether you don’t see great artistic taste in the
arrangement.”
“Why, they’re nothing but maps, and lists of names and dates,” said
Tom, who had got up to examine the decorations. “And what in the world
are all these queer pins for?” he went on, pulling a strong pin with a
large red sealing-wax head out of the map nearest to him.
“Hullo! take care there; what are you about?” shouted Hardy, getting up
and hastening to the corner. “Why, you irreverent beggar, those pins
are the famous statesmen and warriors of Greece and Rome.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn’t know I was in such august company;”
saying which, Tom proceeded to stick the red-headed pin back into the
wall.
“Now, just look at that,” said Hardy, taking the pin out from the
place where Tom had stuck it. “Pretty doings there would be amongst
them with your management. This pin is Brasidas; you’ve taken him away
from Naupactus, where he was watching the eleven Athenian galleys
anchored under the temple of Apollo, and stuck him down right in the
middle of the Pnyx, where he will be instantly torn in pieces by a
ruthless and reckless mob. You call yourself a Tory indeed! However,
’twas always the same with you Tories; calculating, cruel, and jealous.
Use your leaders up, and throw them over—that’s the golden rule of
aristocracies.”
“Hang Brasidas,” said Tom, laughing; “stick him back at Naupactus
again. Here, which is Cleon? The scoundrel! give me hold of him, and
I’ll put him in a hot berth.”
“That’s he, with the yellow head. Let him alone, I tell you, or all
will be hopeless confusion when Grey comes for his lecture. We’re only
in the third year of the war.”
“I like your chaff about Tories sacrificing their great men,” said Tom,
putting his hands in his pockets to avoid temptation. “How about your
precious democracy, old fellow? Which is Socrates?”
“Here, the dear old boy!—this pin with the great gray head, in the
middle of Athens, you see. I pride myself on my Athens. Here’s the
Piræus and the long walls, and the hill of Mars. Isn’t it as good as a
picture?”
“Well, it _is_ better than most maps, I think,” said Tom; “but you’re
not going to slip out so easily. I want to know whether your pet
democracy did or did not murder Socrates.”
“I’m not bound to defend democracies. But look at my pins. It may be
the natural fondness of a parent, but I declare they seem to me to have
a great deal of character, considering the material. You’ll guess them
at once, I’m sure, if you mark the color and shape of the wax. This one
now, for instance, who is he?”
“Alcibiades,” answered Tom, doubtfully.
“Alcibiades!” shouted Hardy; “you fresh from Rugby, and not know
your Thucydides better than that. There’s Alcibiades, that little
purple-headed, foppish pin, by Socrates. This rusty colored one is that
respectable old stick-in-the-mud, Nicias.”
“Well, but you’ve made Alcibiades nearly the smallest of the whole
lot,” said Tom.
“So he was, to my mind,” said Hardy; “just the sort of insolent young
ruffian whom I should have liked to buy at my price, and sell at his
own. He must have been very like some of our gentlemen-commoners, with
the addition of brains.”
“I should really think, though,” said Tom, “it must be a capital plan
for making you remember the history.”
“It is, I flatter myself. I’ve long had the idea, but I should never
have worked it out and found the value of it but for Grey. I invented
it to coach him in his history. You see we are in the Grecian corner.
Over there is the Roman. You’ll find Livy and Tacitus worked out there,
just as Herodotus and Thucydides are here; and the pins are stuck for
the Second Punic War, where we are just now. I shouldn’t wonder if Grey
got his first, after all, he’s picking up so quick in my corners; and
says he never forgets any set of events when he has pricked them out
with the pins.”