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[191] 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[192] 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 pir?us 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.”